


Why Do You Try So Hard?

by Lieutenant_Kader (geekstar)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Fluff, Gore, Grif Outpost Massacre Survivor, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SURPRISINGLY SIMILAR mines less funny lol, Slow Burn, Slurs, canon divergence now that we saw how they met, jumps back into canon after chapter one, just a bit tho, post s13 scenes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6445579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekstar/pseuds/Lieutenant_Kader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Simmons tries too hard and Grif doesn't try enough, but they both have their reasons. </p><p>(Title changed; Previously titled "Wanna talk about it?")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to Make Friends and Find Meaning in Life (at a Shitty Space Army Camp)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this on and off for about a couple million months whenever i needed to chill. I wanted to write about Grif surviving the Outpost Massacre before he was sent to Blood Gulch. If you haven't read the book, here's the down low: he took a nap and woke up being literally the only survivor because they thought he was already dead.  
> That's what I was primarily going to write about, but it turned into a lot more. More specifically, it turned into Grimmons, of course, god damnit.  
> So here's chapter one enjoyyyyyyy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basic Training

Brisk winter air stung at Simmons's lungs as he ran, begging any god who would listen to free him from running another lap.

The sun painted the dirt and mottled grass with shades of red and orange, betraying the freezing chill outside and the crisp crunch of frost condensing and melting under every slam of his stinging feet upon the alien earth.

"I'M NOT WAITING ALL DAY, SIMMONS!" Sergeant Daniels shouted, voice carrying over the wind.

"Sir--" he gasped, "Yes suh-sir!"

He was embarrassed out of his goddamned mind. Running the numbers in his head, he was at least four minutes behind the rest of the class- who were already marching off to evening drills and the mess hall.

_Fuck_ basic training.

Glancing upward to avoid running off the track, his eyes caught on to a rather large someone up ahead (and technically, three laps behind). In fact, the only other person left on the track besides himself.

He rolled his eyes and allowed his gasp to become a quiet verbal scoff. He'd seen this guy around.

They were half a mile out in the dead grass of the track fields when Daniel's distant voice rang out, "AND HURRY THE FUCK UP PRIVATE GRIF, THIS ISN'T ELEMENTARY."

Simmons tried his best to look put together (and at least sort of cool and serious) as he passed by the man walking at an appallingly slow pace. Refusing to make eye contact, he picked up his own pace with the last of his ability to do so, attempting to stifle his blatant wheezing.

His very, _very_ blatant wheezing.

Ten feet in front of Private Grif and he had to stop. He couldn't do it. His legs shook as he rested his hands on his knees, bending himself forward and borderline hyperventilating. His frame shook as he hacked with painful coughs.

"All right!" Sergeant Daniels called out, "That's as long as I'm gonna wait! You boys have fun finishing that lap plus three extra!"

"Hey!" Grif shouted. "How are we gonna get dinner?"

There was a beat where Simmons could imagine Daniels's perturbing 'Did I fucking stutter' stare of death before she called out "FOUR LAPS."

Simmons tried to get a hold of his breathing, shame washing over him in waves as he heard Grif slowly catching up to him. He slowed down as he caught up to Simmons, which only added an extra twelve layers of embarrassment to his predicament. His breathing started hitching painfully.

"Uh... you okay?" Private Grif didn't exactly sound concerned as much as awkwardly obliged to ask.

Simmons frustration flared inside him. He garnered every ounce of stubbornness and sarcasm he had left to look up at the stout Hawaiian man and drawl between shutters of breath, " _Obviously._ "

His acquaintance looked split between the mildest twist of surprise and irritation. "Damn, sorry for asking. Don't take it out on me. You're the one torturing yourself here."

Stretching his aching back, he glared out toward the setting sun. "We're SUPPOSED to be doing this," Simmons said in a raspy wheeze. "At least I'm giving an effort."

Grif rolled his eyes and continued walking. "Yeah, okay, looks like it's going great for you."

Simmons gave himself another minute before he started running again, despite everything in his thin weary body begging him not to. He passed Grif again as the sun dipped over the trees. At the end of the second mile lap, Simmons collapsed.

When he returned from the murky fog of his mind, he could see his lazy acquaintance holding out a water.

Grif stood over him as he drank, not pausing for breath. Eventually he flopped down next to Simmons's shaking form with a heaving sigh.

Simmons's mind reeled into consciousness at the display of apparent exhaustion.

"What are _you_ so tired from?" He said after the last drip of water had been drained from the bottle, voice still raspy and constricted.

Grif scoffed, half turning to look at Simmons. His eyes glinted with another complicated mix of surprise, faux offense, and blatant amusement. "And to think kiss-asses didn't have a backbone, Jesus! How many times did you get your undies tied to the flag pole for the sass?"

Simmons tensed, face burning red, sputtering. "I'm not- I- I didn't-"

Smirking, Grif raised his hand in a stop motion sign. "Relax dude, don't give yourself a hernia."

"Fuck off!" Simmons snapped, remembering how to use words to express meaning. "Like I haven't had fatasses like you making fun of me for giving a shit about literally anything before. What the fuck does it matter to you?"

He had obviously put a damper on Grif's amusement as the glint left his eyes; something Simmons wouldn't admit to regret missing in the heat of the moment. "Damn man, I don't know, boredom? Curiosity? Besides that, it's not like you didn't just fucking collapse from exhaustion. Your welcome for the water."

Simmons opened his mouth again, then snapped it shut. His face was suddenly burning for an entirely different reason. It occurred to him that he may have been at least as much of a jerk as his acquaintance.

There lingered an awkward silence.

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks."

Grif snorted. "No problem, asshole."

Simmons floundered for a moment before snapping his mouth shut again. He earned that one. Honestly, "asshole" was probably going easy on him. In all likelihood, Private Grif's excessive apathy was probably the only thing stopping him from giving Simmons a pummeling. Simmons had said far less and gotten far worse for his quick mouth and bursts of anger.

In a dramatic gesture of exhaustion, Grif laid back and sighed extensively. "S'not like I had to walk halfway across base for it or anything after all that _agonizing_ exercise."

Simmons scoffed in return, accompanied by the most incremental tug of his frown into a smirk. Not only was this guy forgiving, he was almost friendly. Almost.

They sat in a strangely comfortable silence that Simmons knew should not be comfortable at all. But he still hadn't quite caught his breath, his legs were still burning, and the lazy snark next to him was being...well, annoying, but not a total piece of shit like most everyone else. Moreso, Simmons didn't have to suck up to this guy. Which was good, because he didn't want to.

So, for the moment, sitting in the dirt and an encroaching darkness with nearly a complete stranger was the most comfortable Simmons had felt in a long time. It was weird, to say the least. Simmons spaced out watching the line of fire over the horizon as Grif took a chocolate bar out from his pocket and peeled the wrapping.

"But sheriously," Grif said with a mouth-full, jolting Simmons out of his train of thought. "Why thuh fuck are you working sho hard?"

Simmons ignored the voice in his head that had been answering that question for his entire life with "That's a damn good point" or "I don't know."

"Why the fuck aren't _you_ trying at all?" Simmons snapped back instead. Then realized what Grif was holding. " _And where the fuck did you find a chocolate bar in a military camp?!_ "

For the rest of basic they wouldn't shut the fuck up around each other. It sucked and they hated each other and everything was terrible.

(But it wasn't _that_  bad, either.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be multi chapter (probably at least fiveish) and I'll be updating at probably super random intervals woo. I think I'll post the second chapter tonight or soonish.
> 
> Comment if you have the time pleasepleaseplease, but only if you liked it, I'm not here for your constructive criticism I'm here to be praised damn it. 
> 
> Just kidding I'll take everything I'm super chill, but also, seriously, i wanna hear what you guys think (if its worth thinking over lol)


	2. Outpost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif at the Outpost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this at 1:40 am because why the fuck not whatEVer. This one takes the fic in a whole different direction friendos. Also it's probably the darkest this fic is gonna get. Please be warned about violence and gore and general bad times. 
> 
> also holy shit thank you everyone who commented and kudos'd and just read chapter one and was so nice wowie you people are nice. this chapter is pretty vastly different from the first so hopefully i dont throw all you guys off haha

It's not the blood that got to him, even though it was everywhere. Red.

It was the bodies themselves. Mangled, torn, already going through the stages of natural recycling. Generally fucked up. War and Action-flicks prepared him for the blood and gore and straightforward Hollywood bullshit, but not the particular way Sergeant Briar's neck curved and the sickly discoloration of Private Henderson's decapitated head. It didn't prepare him for the memories of the day before, talking about their actual children and actual families and actual dreams, making stupid jokes and rolling their eyes, and the way Diez had looked over the shittiest horizon known to man, looked at Grif, and said, "Damn, what a view, huh?" as if it was something beautiful or awe inspiring, worthy of a quiet voice and introspection.

Grif didn't give a shit about any of that, but he didn't need to. Whether he was there or not, Diez would have still seen that view. He would have still been alive.

He wouldn't be torn up all over the floor.

For the love of god, he just took one nap.

He sat for a long time as thoughts bubbled over one another in a mangled swarm of "How the Fuck Do You React To This." It took time for it to hit, until he'd looked at some poor fucking kid's bashed in skull for at least an hour and realized that he didn't have that good of an imagination to create the imagery himself. Eventually, he managed to truly wake up.

Suddenly there was only a hyper awareness of his actions ruling his mind; calculated motions and stiff military movements that his body was unused to. Scanned surroundings for detectable life. Gun kept prepared to fire. Crouching low and moving quick.

The closest warthog was fortunately unmanned by any corpses. Guns were now completely at his disposal, so four or five were tossed in the backseat. He climbed in and floored it out of the docking bay.

Only after he had driven twenty miles out of the base's perimeter into the desert did he shove his foot down on to the brakes, sending sand flying into the air. Grif gave himself a moment of quiet, listening to the sand shift in the hot breeze. Then he climbed out of the warthog and fell apart.

First he puked. After that he heaved. Eventually he found himself pacing, muttering, because he didn't know what to do. Where to go, how to feel, where to be. He felt like he shouldn't be anywhere. He should be dead. Where do you go when you're supposed to be dead but are horrifically very much alive?

He felt young. More than anything, he felt younger than he had in years. Not looking after a little sister, not trying to be the parent, not trying to be a soldier, not trying to do what's right because all he was surrounded with were things wrong. He was scared. He was insulted at the universe putting this on him. He was horrified at himself for feeling that way when he had survived out of all those good people. They were dead and he was mediocre. They were dead and he was scared. Like if he had a warm bed he could pull up the blankets and maybe it'd all just go away. Figures that the one time he really achieved some semblance of a childhood and it's in the worst goddamned fucked up way possible.

Sand and tears burned his eyes and somehow the rotting smell of blood lingered in his nose. He missed his sister. He missed the rainforests on a cool day. He missed television and salty shitty snacks. He missed that asshole he met in Basic. He felt ill again at the realization that Simmons was probably dead too. They were in a war after all.

He hated missing them. He hated being here and he hated the hatred. He despised the unfairness of it all. He never asked for parents that would leave him to carry the weight. He never asked to be ripped away from Kaikana. He never asked to be in this stupid as shit war. He didn't deserve it and he didn't want it and he didn't need it. He never asked to feel so much love and despair and hatred over people he had never asked to care for to begin with. Fuck that. 

The sun dipped down into the horizon while he sat there. It was going to get cold soon. He didn't want to move. But rationality and survival won over just barely; he figured no one had killed Kaikana back on Earth, so if he was lucky he'd get sent back home. All he had to do was survive a couple more nights and wait for someone to pick him up.

He managed to drag himself back to the warthog and click his helmet into place, begging for someone to respond to his localized radio transmissions. Anyone.

After a hefty and horrifying silence, the engine roared back to life. Fiddling with the helmet radio settings succeeded in unlocking a shitty emergency long-range transmitter.

"Yo, if anyone can hear me, this is Private Dexter Grif, Outpost 66D on Rhadaman is dead. I am the sole survivor of... _whatever_ happened there. Didn't look like a battle as much as a massacre. It's been at least 4 hours and I'm traveling East to 67D. No signal from them either."

Evening descended on the planet as the dwarf sun fell. Grif could feel his skin crawl at the idea of being alone in the dark. Rhadaman had nights three times as long as Earth's. He gripped the wheel hard as his voice cracked. 

"Someone get me the fuck out of here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lemme know what you guys think??? D'oh god i'm nervous hah a . 
> 
> Also I'm reformatting a lot of the chapters and bout 2 start school again so next chapter might be a lil bit. Definitely not gonna be on a day to day schedule (I wish lol)


	3. Memories are Annoying but Sometimes They're Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif deals with lots of memories on a boring nervous trip to Blood Gulch. Some bad, some good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this ENTIRE CHAPTER and then SCRAPPED IT and rewrote ALL OF IT.  
> Heads up that some gore is mentioned and some homophobia too. Grif uses the word bitch and slut, sorry (some people mind, some don't, but I'm happy to give you the heads up. ). I'll add slurs to the tags.  
> Hopefully it's obvious that all memories are in italics.  
> Thank you again to everyone who has kudos'd and subscribed and commented wow you guys are super kind and supportive i appreciate it, im very self-conscious when it comes to my writing and this helps me a lot haha

 

It was hot as hell.

And Grif had fucking been there, he would know.

_One week in. He sat on the kitchen floor of an outpost, curled up as much as he could in his armor. He had found an empty bunk and promptly moved all garnered supplies into it, including food, ammo, blankets, and water. But supplies were running low, and there wasn't another compound or base he could find food for another several miles at least._

_Either he was hallucinating the smells, or his helmet filtering system wasn't working properly. He could actively be getting sick from what was festering on the dead bodies that had been scattered throughout the small compound._

_He sat, huddled and shaking. There was a storm and Command couldn't land without risking damage to the ship or rescue team. If it lasted any longer, he would either have to starve there or travel through the raging storm to the next compound, which could be impossible if military carrier vessels couldn't._

He wasn't there anymore though.

_A mass sat against the wall, blood smeared. The huddled mass had a face this time; helmet thrown askew, and her face-_

He wasn't there anymore.

They had ultimately refused his request form to return home, citing his medical records and his "satisfactory condition" as reason enough to stay. Apparently, minor treatment of PTSD, complete apathy, and a total unwillingness to cooperate still somehow counted as satisfactory.

When he voiced this, loudly, with colorful expletives and perhaps a minor mental breakdown (only to get the point across), he at least got the papers to do some rounds to some higher ups, but ultimately it only changed his station outpost. They promised him that it was nothing but the start of a civil war on the outskirts of human colonization.

He really didn't understand why they were shrugging off a goddamn civil war, but they sent him off before he could ask more information besides the name "Blood Gulch Outpost 1-A."

_Grif knew for sure his damn armor wasn't working when he forced his way out into the storm and immediately inhaled sand. He retreated back into the dark, choking and coughing and swearing. He should have known. And he was out of water._

Blood Gulch.

From the military carrier vessel, Grif got a sick feeling in his stomach looking at the planet he'd be stationed on. Surprisingly, it seemed to have a diversity of ecosystems. He could see little oceans, grasses, forests and deserts. He even noticed snow. He'd only gotten to see snow a few times in his life. He wondered if he ever would get an away mission and see it.

Ultimately, it passed as Earth-like, but that didn't make him feel better. Somehow it just made him feel farther from home.

There were ten other soldiers in the carrier vessel with him, all identical in annoyingly red armor. It irked him that he was automatically associating red with some nitty-gritty bullshit that he was doing a decent job of actively suppressing. Fuck that, fuck having triggers.

_This time, for some reason, he couldn't look away from the body, like his body had finally locked down-_

He closed his eyes. He was fine. He was totally fine. It was just a bunch of dumb, alive, soldiers around him.

He sat in silence for a while regaining composure, as the vessel rumbled into the troposphere, the view of the planet's ground enveloping the view.

"Oye." a soldier near him said in a deep baritone. "¿Sabe algo de esta mierda?"

Grif blinked in his helmet. "No hablo espanol, dude-o."

"Oh." the soldier said, disappointed. "English?"

Grif nodded.

"You know anything about this Civil War bullshit?" His accent danced through fair English in a brusque voice.

Grif stared. He mustered the most excessively genuine voice he could muster. "Yeah! Y'see, there's one side and then there's another side, and they were both part of the _same side_ , but they disagreed and started fighting _each other_. Apparently we're on the team wearing _red._ "

The soldier next to him stared. 

"No, I don't know anything." Grif replied. "Ever heard of Blood Gulch?" 

The soldier leaned back. Grif could tell he was eyeing him from behind the visor. "All these idiots are heading to different Outposts; no one to mine. I haven't heard Blood Gulch from anyone either."

"What's yours? I don't know shit about this planet."

"Confidential." The soldier's sturdy build shook from a huff, muttering to himself. "I'm just a robotics mechanic, no one tells me anything. All I know is that I fucked up an assignment and next thing I know, front lines to some stupid civil war. I can't believe I was an idiot enough to want to join."

Grif snorted. "I was drafted AND fucked up."

And suddenly something else appeared in his mind.

_“You’re kidding me. There’s no fucking way you’re serious.” Simmons said, sitting up in his bunk._

_“Dead serious, Simmons, I am the walking one-man draft.” Grif responded across from him in his own bunk, warmly illuminated as he lit his cigarette._

_Simmons stared at him._

_Then he laughed._

_Really, truly laughed._

_Grif had only known Simmons for a few weeks during Basic, but a tingling feeling that spread through his chest told him that Simmons hadn't laughed like that in a long, long time. That he was witnessing something novel._

_He was flabbergasted, to say the least._

There was a pause. The heavy-set looked right at him. "You an idiot too? There wasn't a draft."

"So everyone keeps telling me," Grif deadpanned, the memory that had rushed into his mind like cool ocean water on a scorching day teasing for his attention.

_Grif had to fight to look offended and hide the warm laughter ready to burst from his chest at seeing the stuck-up nerd bent over in giggles. He WAS offended, and he wasn’t gonna laugh damn it, but he couldn’t hide the confused smile that had conquered his expression. Cigarette forgotten, he watched hypnotized as Simmons suffered through his laughing fit._

_“Oh thank you Simmons!” he finally piped up, voice warbling from trying to keep it straight. “It’s so good to know my supernaturally shitty luck amuses you so much.”_

_Simmons wheezed. “No- I just-” he wouldn’t stop laughing. "That's so terrible!! That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard."_

_He snorted loudly._

_Grif's laughter pooled over at that. "Hooooly shit Simmons, you are the most fucked up nerd I have ever met."_

_"Fuck-" Simmons laughed, wiping tears, "-you."_

_Grif snickered into his cigarette._

"Honestly, I don't really give a fuck," Grif said, leaning back (and emotionally away from the heavy sentiment suddenly suffocating him). "No matter where they put me, I'm not doing shit."

The Spanish-speaking soldier hummed in thought, then looked at him again. "I've been chatting around with these guys," he jerked a thumb at the rest of the soldiers, some chatting amiably among themselves, save a few caught up in their own thoughts, "and they're all full of shit like you."

Before Grif could decide whether to ignore the asshole or throw something back, the man leaned back and continued, unfazed by any potential backlash. "Like me too. I really fucked up and now they're sending me off for some 'special mission?' I work in tech. Nowadays tech work...es jodidamente raro. Es puta mierda extrana."

Grif suddenly didn't know where this conversation was going. He really didn't even care at this point. All potential interest had been drained from him. "Are you trying to say something, or what?"

_"Are you eyeing me, boy?"_

_Ah shit, Simmons was probably caught up studying her stance or march down the line. He had told Grif it was "educational, innocent rule-breaking."_ _Grif told him that it was the most kiss-ass rule-breaking he had ever heard of._

_Simmons held his salute precisely, eyes now forward, but Grif could see out of the corner of his eye the panic seizing the tall man."No, sir!"_

_Sergeant Daniels looked up at him, her gaze fierce. With a smirk, she said, "Damn right. I forgot faggots look lower. Don't they, Private?"_

_Drill Sergeants were born to be offensive assholes and get soldiers riled up. It was literally part of the job. That's why it never bothered Grif; no matter what they said, it didn't mean shit._

_For the first time in a while, his blood boiled._

_Simmons was holding his ground, but Grif could feel the shift. It was there in the air between them. It was fucking weird. He could feel Simmons burn with anger at the unfairness of that statement, and crumble at the embarrassment, and falter at the strength necessary to hold all that back, and the panic of failure rushing in._

_Simmons gulped. "Yes, sir."_

_Goddammit, Grif wanted to punch her in the mouth for making Simmons say that._

_She looked ready to keep going and put on another little show. He assumed she performed them with Simmons because she could tear him down and leave him a stuttering, pathetic mess and he would never talk back. Ultimately, she wanted him to. She always relished in punishing them for talking back after she had egged them on. You never take the bait. At least Simmons understood that. He was smart enough to hold back. And enough of an ambitious pushover. But this just didn't sit right._

_All Grif had to do was blink oddly a couple times to get her attention, honed in on the imperfection like a hawk and wholeheartedly distracted from Simmons. "And what the fuck's going on over here, Private Grif?"_

_"Allergies, sir!" Grif said, bullshitting for time as she stepped up to face him._

_"Allergic to getting your ass whooped for looking like a goddamn fool while standing at attention, soldier?"_

_And oh, he just couldn't help it. It wasn't even clever, but he just couldn't goddamn help it. He knew she was reeling him in so that she could punish him, he knew it, that's how it worked, it wouldn't be worth it, but his anger was bubbling._

_"No, sir, allergic to bitches, sir!"_

_He was on the ground in seconds, moaning in pain, blood flowing from his crumpled nose. That really wasn't worth it._

_As the squad was dismissed, they scattered, leaving him to pry himself from the dirt. Simmons hadn't moved from where he had been standing in line._

_After a minute or so, Simmons decidedly crossed his arms and walked closer to him._

_"That was stupid." he said, matter-of-factly. Snarkily. Like an asshole._

_Grif raised his head, ready to snap._

_Simmons looked as much like shit as Grif probably did just then. He was coming down from an adrenaline rush, tan skin simultaneously paling, flushed, and almost green. Positively ill, like someone had punched HIM in the gut. Sweaty and dirty from the days training, tired with bags under his eyes from anxiety attacks and insomnia. What had been months of anxiety seemed to have culminated into it's most apparent form. Or maybe Grif was noticing it all in clarity for the first time. Understanding more of Simmons than what he'd really seen before._

_Despite all that, some mix of condescension and warm pride had melded into a shaky smirk on Simmons's face._ _And more than anything, what stopped Grif in that moment were his eyes._

_His eyes were on **fire** , pupils only pinpricks,flashing bright with the sun in his eyes, looking down at Grif like he had lit the flame himself. _

_"That was...COMPLETELY fucking stupid."_

_(In that moment, something in the back of Grif's head offered the notion that he had just fallen in love before his conscious mind could even react with the appropriate amount of horror several hours later.)_

_For now, he sighed, exasperated and grinning. "Finally, we agree on something. I don't think I'll be able to walk."_

_He flopped back down dramatically with an 'oof'._

_"Simmons, you'll have to carry me."_

_Simmons laughed like he was trying to scoff, but it came out honest and shaky, smile breaking through bright as he rolled his eyes. "Oh fuck off, you're fine."_

Grif reeled his consciousness back into reality.

Simmons kept finding his way to the front of his mind. It had gone from barely noticeable to accidental coping mechanism to goddamn annoying. They weren't ever friends, really. As many times as they laughed together, they had gotten in thrice as many arguments. Grif hadn't had many friends throughout his life, but he was pretty sure that wasn't what it was. 

Simmons was a stuck up, privileged, annoying, geeky, sweaty nerd with a superiority complex and daddy issues. Simmons talked too much about things that Grif didn't care about. Simmons would give up every shred of self dignity for even a high five from someone he considered superior to him. Simmons still thought that joining the military was a _good_ idea. Simmons was an asshole who occasionally treated people like shit. Simmons was occasionally both a wimp and a coward.

Why his brain was trying to convince him of some form of past friendship or emotional bond with these little sweet moments, Grif didn't know. But as he said, it was starting to get fucking annoying.

The annoying part being that he genuinely liked Simmons, that he found himself holding on to those memories the same way he held on to memories of his childhood, ice cream with Kai, warm windy days driving across the island in a beat up car, video games and fast food, the circus and the beach.

The soldier next to him had been quiet for a while, thinking to himself.

Then he laughed hollowly. "I ask all the smart questions, but no one ever listens to me. What do we all have in common on this ship? It's that we all don't give a shit about what's going on and none of us are worth shit as soldiers. I don't even care enough to convince anyone to wonder why, either. God damn."

"Ahuh, whatever you say, dude." Grif's head was swimming from exhaustion at that point. His attention was severely preoccupied with the ground suddenly coming up to meet and pass them as they descended into a canyon. What the fuck.

The heavyset man next to him sighed, muttering in Spanish.

"Ahuh, hey, do you know where we are?" Grif asked the soldier, looking around. Did a canyon count as a gulch? Grif was used to 'O'he'o Gulch; lush rain-forests and sacred pools during the humid summers.

Not dry dirt, dead grass, and bare canyon walls. He felt constricted immediately.

The carrier vessel landed on the top of a minor cliff looking down into an impressively deep floor of the canyon, one outpost in walking distance (which was too far already, by Grif's standards), and another in the distance.

As the pilot came out from behind the pilot bay doors, shouting "Blood Gulch 1-B! Depart!" Grif heaved out a sigh.

The air was already stifling hot, even through his armor.

"Wow, this place looks like shit," The surprisingly talkative soldier next to him said. "Glad I'm not going there, Jesus fuck."

"Thanks, good luck with your whatever." Grif replied, and thought nothing more of the conversation for the next several years. He hopped off the ship and took his first steps on to cracked, decrepit ground.

**It was hot. as. hell.**

_Simmons was staring at him from his bunk._

_Grif looked at him in the darkness. He whispered, quietly, "What? Do you need your bedtime story?"_

_Simmons looked surprised that Grif noticed him staring, but surprisingly didn't turn away. Recovering from any embarrassment at being caught, he squinted at Grif harder._

_"Okay dude, seriously," Grif whispered again, "You're not getting graded on your ability to creep the shit out of your bunkmates. Speaaaak."_

_It was still what felt like ages before Simmons spoke again. "What's your family like?"_

_Grif didn't know how to respond to that. It seemed a little too personal, but maybe the nerd was still coming down from the anxiety of earlier today. Maybe Grif could just get through this without getting mushy._

_"Not worth talking about, besides my sister." He said after a moment. He kept it simple, assuming Simmons just meant to ask so that he could lead into whatever the hell he wanted to talk about. "What's yours like?"_

_Simmons did a quiet little huff. "I wasn't trying to lead into talking about **my** family, asshole." Grif had to laugh a little at that. Well, shit. Simmons continued, "What's your sister like?"_

_Grif rolled over. "Kind of a slut, actually."_

_Simmons eyes bulged. "Wh?!"_

_"Her words, not mine!" He whispered, grinning, turning over to lay on his back."She's got that whole womany independence pride thing going for her."_

_"What's her name?"_

_"Kaikana. She doesn't do shit and talks shit and always gets what she wants."_

_Grif was staring up at the ceiling now. He was trying not to be sentimental, but fuck if he didn't walk right into the sentimentality trap by talking about Kai._

_Simmons hummed. "Miss her?"  
_

_"Of course," he sighed. "Don't ever tell her, but she's the best thing that ever happened to me."_

_They were quiet for a bit, Grif suddenly embarrassed by the conversation. He was trying to come up with a way to get Simmons to talk again when the umber haired man whispered, "Do you always talk the most shit about the people you actually like?"_

_Grif replied instantly with a smirk. "Pff, yeah, only because they're shit though."_

_Grif found that it was always the weird problem-people he liked the most. They always seemed the most genuine. He mentally froze, realizing he had basically inadvertently admitted to liking Simmons. Shit. Had the freckled bastard done that on purpose?_

_Simmons only laughed in response and turned over, stuffing his face into his pillow._

_"Me too." Simmons mumbled into the fabric, as Grif drifted into sleep._

The carrier vessel flew north. Grif immediately laid on the ground and watched it fly away, shimmering in the sun. He wondered - already quite morosely - if he'd ever fly in one again, away from this actual literal hellhole. If Simmons was dead or still kissing ass or actually getting a clue about how shitty the military was. He wondered if Kaikana was going to class and eating enough. He at least didn't have to worry about her being lonely; she never failed to find friends. He was glad that she probably didn't miss him too much. Did Simmons? 

Grif kinda hated Simmons for this alone, let alone all the other damn good reasons to hate the guy. He was annoyingly prevalent even when he wasn't even there.

He rolled over and looked out over the birds eye view of the canyon. Not everything was dead here; green spattered the cliff sides and birds cawed in the distance. Eventually his eyelids got heavy and he drifted to sleep in the sun.

Unfortunately, after a while it began to get uncomfortable to sit on the cliff-side with full body armor and zero shade. 

Also, with people screaming at each other.

 **"EAT DICKS, RED!!"** echoed off the cliff-faces, momentarily waking him. He crawled (more like rolled) a little closer to the edge of the cliff and observed two soldiers in red armor standing down below near a small fortress. Far out in the distance, he saw two blueish dots shouting animatedly near an identical base.

He immediately cataloged it as another thing to learn how to sleep through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I might accidentally start writing progressive B-Plot stories about all of red team exploring their pasts and lives and stuff haha whoops i'm red team trash (superior trash to blue team tho)
> 
> If I need to clarify: Grif was speaking to Lopez. How? How was Lopez speaking English? Why was he talking like a human? These are the questions I'm HOPING you're asking and making educated guesses about, rather than asking the questions I'M asking, like "How the fuck do you write" and "Why am i doing this oh my god i have so much homework" and "How do you write Sarge"
> 
> I really hope you guys like it you've all been so kind thanks!!!


	4. Ive got no car and its breakin my heart (but i've got a driver and that's a start)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hold on, we gotta rewind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the hardest fic for me to write because there's a PLOT and it's SO NOT CANON but i'm trying to WRITE IT WITHIN CANON just. god. please tell me if youre diggin it cuz im having a hard time w this one and i need some inspo 
> 
> thanks for reading y'all i love you

The UNSC Falcon heaved sideways, causing Simmons to stumble a bit and cling on to the overhead handles with everything he had, attempting not to hurl into his helmet or on one of the other soldiers.

They had waited out the worst of a sandstorm that had taken out communications and generally any chance of flying down to the surface, flying in the upper hemispheres for over a night, sort of idling about and checking computers. Simmons didn’t know why these assholes wouldn’t put him at a desk on board where he could monitor meteorological changes or signs of life on the planet; instead he was being tasked as a foot soldier. Idiots.

“Why are you taking it so hard?” Said the soldier next to him. Of the multiple soldiers surrounding him, the soldier _next_ to him was the Greatest Of All Assholes. And after knowing the guy for a total of three minutes, Simmons could also call him one of the most vulgar people he’d ever known. “It’s just because you’re expendable cannon fodder in case there's zombies or some shit down there.”

“Wow.” Simmons said, voice filled with awe. “Wow. Thank you. I feel so much better. Really. Were you a counselor? Why are you in the army?”

The guy snorted. “Look dude, I’m standing in the same place you are. I’m just not gonna be a bitch about it. All I’m hoping for is to get down there and be heroic as SHIT so I can pick up some chicks with a medal of honor.”

This pervert hadn’t shut up for four minutes now as they descended onto the planet from the helicarrier. Simmons was already mentally muting him, incapable of focusing on a conversation when he was anxious and nauseous and probably going to die and surrounded by idiots.

“I’ve got it all figured out-” the soldier said. Simmons decided to work on breathing exercises. Mental stretches. Happy thoughts. Good memories.

_They had a night off, one night off before they would be shipped out again, and god knows they weren’t gonna waste it. Simmons could only think of one person he wanted to spend it with, and thank god Grif hadn’t thought anything of it when he had slid into step with him on the way out the main gate._

_Grif started talking as soon as he caught his eye, as if he had been there the entire time and they were merely continuing a conversation that hadn’t existed. “How drunk do you think I need to be to not be sent out tomorrow?”_

_Simmons laughed with a casual huff, thankful that no one needed to be convinced to get wasted. He answered, “Dead.”_

_Grif laughed sourly. “I guess being sent out in a body bag isn’t quite appealing yet.”_

“-and since it’s on my belt, she’ll be like _‘oh my gawd can i see your medal’_ and I’ll be like, ‘fuck yeah you can see my medal, but we gotta take it off first. Bow ch-”

“Soldiers, at attention! We’re coming in hot! Look alive.” Said Lieutenant Johnson. Simmons could see the ground coming toward them, whirling sand illuminated by the Falcon’s external lights. Over the rush of the wind, Simmons heard Johnson mutter, “God knows everyone else is dead.”

“Then why the fuck is this called a search and rescue?!” The vulgar soldier shouted over the wind. Did he not pay attention to the mission briefing? There was one survivor (poor whoever the fuck they were), and they hadn’t even had contact with the guy for a week. It was mostly a mission to gain any possible valuable intelligence and information on warfare. God knows the UNSC didn’t actually care about all the soldiers that died or anything; they just wanted to know why they suddenly didn’t have an entire planet’s worth of military resources at their disposal and if there was any way to get them back.

They didn’t say all of that in the mission briefing, of course. Simmons made an educated guess. He even went as far as creating a side program in his helmet interface so that he could make color coordinated notes during missions. He supposed some people just couldn’t keep up.

“Private Tucker,” Lieutenant Johnson said evenly, before pushing the soldier back, causing him to lose his balance with a shout. Simmons wheeled around and watched him reach for a handhold before stumbling off the other side of the Falcon carrier. Well, shit.

Johnson stepped to shout over the side as it continued it’s landing. “You better hope you either find someone alive with intel, or get killed out there, Private, because you’re not gonna like what I’m gonna do to you when you come back empty handed!”

Simmons didn’t walk up to the edge, but he tiptoed enough to see the other soldier getting up off the ground from his fall. It was probably only ten feet but he started whining and grumbling angrily.

Simmons turned to Johnson, mildly terrified. “Don’t worry, sir! I’m sure I’ll come back with something!”

Johnson turned to him, imperceptible behind his helmet visor. Simmons tried not to have a visible panic attack. “Do I look like an open radio com? I don’t want words, I want action, get moving private.”

“Yes sir!” He responded, hopping off lightly into the sand as the soldiers panned out onto the surface of the planet a couple feet away from Private Turner. Few things were visible through the sand swirling around them as the helicarrier calmed. 

The soldiers were to be sent into two different directions, so they sorted into teams. Simmons couldn’t help but take a dig at the soldier that had been pushed out, who was looking to be in a ridiculously pissy mood.

“Who’s the bitch now, bitch?” Simmons muttered, grinning behind his helmet.

The soldier looked back at him from the departing Eastward team, scoffing. “Still you, kiss-ass! Hope you get eaten by a zombie!”

Simmons huffed. “M-maybe I will!”

“Great comeback!”

Simmons started walking away, realizing he was getting distracted and his team was already panning out in the other direction. “Oh whatever, go fuck off.”

Private Turd-Ass sounded delighted when his now more distant voice shouted back, “Maybe I will!”

Simmons stopped. “Oh goddammit, _gross_.” He continued walking into the dusty horizon.

 

* * *

 

Private Dexter Grif was not a survivalist. He was not a soldier. And despite previous assumptions made during junior high, he would not be one of the people likely to survive some grandiose apocalypse. 

The first week had been hell. Every choice he made on what to do next seemed to be the wrong one. Every turn was a dead end, filled, accordingly, with the dead. 

He worked with his strengths: Finding kitchens. He was always good at that. When he arrived at the third base just in time for the sandstorm to hit, he tried not to look at the bodies as he made his way down metallic hallways and corridors.

The first station he found had food, but not much; he stayed there a week. Grif took the time to grab anything he could that wouldn't expire, and ate everything that could until he couldn't eat anymore. He only had enough food for the week. At least he had made contact with someone; help was on the way.

The second station ruined his appetite. The kitchen was a bloodbath. He didn't spend over an hour there before continuing on.

On the way to the third, his jeep broke down, and he was forced to only bring as much as he could carry the rest of the way to the base. By the time he got there, he had eaten it all.  

Someone already ransacked the kitchen at the third base. There were only a few left in nooks and crannies of the bunkers. And he tried, god knows he tried not to run out, but the storm just wouldn't fucking chill.

So between the panic attacks, between the fear of leaving the kitchen, between the moments where he loathed taking off his helmet, nauseous from the germs surely festering in the air from decaying bodies, Grif ate.

And eventually, he ran out, and he was left with the silence. 

 

He tried to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

 

On the seventh night,

 

                          _"Baby you ca_ _n drive my car~," Simmons slurred along to the jukebox, and Grif took another swig of his drink. Fuck tomorrow, fuck yesterday, no hangover could stop how good he was feeling in this moment. Kaikana once told him all moments last forever, hanging in time. She was super drunk when she said that. Philosophical Kaikana is like seventh level of hell drunk._

 

Was it the seventh night? Or the eighth night?

 

                  _"Yes I'm gonn a be a stAr---fuck," He slipped down from his seat at the bar, stumbling as his voice cracked. Grif caught him by the arm to steady him. Grif was laughing and warm._

 

 

Everything was a blur. He never knew if he was awake or asleep. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe he'd just fade away.

 

 

                                            _"Baby you can drive my car," his hand slipped down into Grifs and pulled: not hard enough to really move Grif, but Grif moved nonetheless. He moved forward, and they were a jumble, not really dancing, but certainly something close. All their limbs were too slow from the alcohol, and the moment was a mental, physical, and hypothetically metaphysical blur._

 

 

"Holy-oh my god- hey, I found them!" A voice said. Grif couldn't see. He couldn't think. Maybe a zombie? Was this a zombie apocalypse? He couldn't remember. All he could think of was that damn song in his head.

 

                                  _"And maybe I'll love you~," Simmons kept singing, badly, and Grif wondered if it could all end here._

 

Would it all end here?

 

"Wha- sir, he's right here, he looks sick, I think he needs medical attention."

 

Grif tried to move, but in an attempt to get off the ground he instead fell closer to it, breathing hard. Someone was in armor in front of him. He could only see UNSC green. He could see his own green armor. A reflection? His own ghost? Wild. He was also seeing dead people. Hallucinations? He must be dying or something. This is worse than before. 

 

"No I'm not going to disobey a direct- but sir!"

 

Grif was fading. 

 

                    _Simmons was close_

 

                                                fading

 

                                                           "-ntelligence over a life?"

 

                                                                                         fading

 

                                                                                                    _Suddenly, he was scared. Scared for tomorrow._

 

Another thing Kaikana had said when drunk as hell: "My third ex Amanda told me that when I die, I won't flashback to my life- y'know like in movies n shit- it's just gonna be all my regrets. That's how you die."

Kaikana teared up after a moment, and Grif was about to refute it, say that it was bullshit, when Kaikana suddenly smiled. "But I don't have any regrets, so I guess I'm fuckin immortal, huh bitch?" And she downed vodka and raised a middle finger to the memory of Amanda. 

                                                

                                                      _Grif pulled away. "Let's get back."_

 

                                                                                                  Grif had regrets. 

 

The soldier stood there for a long time. "You know what? Fuck off, Lieutenant Johnson." 

 

Grif blacked out as the soldier moved forward. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well i certainly hope that made sense lol
> 
> uuh tell me what you think .____.'''''''''''' thank you for reading i love you guys


	5. The Simmons Show: Starring Dick Simmons! This week's Special Guest: His Terrible Life!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons goes home before he gets to Blood Gulch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all got me hyped up for this story dammit. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kindness my dudes you really made me so happy wow. I was feeling really insecure about this story but now I'm just SO HYPE. 
> 
> I swear we're getting close to Grif and Simmons together together again, just gotta catch up. ;) 
> 
> P.S. There's some more OC's in here, sorry I don't like using them much, I'm gonna use them a lot less in following chapters. But I really rREALLY wanted to write this part and that kind of needed the character.

  
Simmons went home for a few days.

He hadn't been kicked out of the army; Johnson practically spit in his face that someone on the up and up pulled some strings for him. He was being sent to some fucking box canyon on the outskirts of civilization to take part in the dumb civil war bullshit that had been so relevant during his training in the first place. He had some time to kill, so he planned a trip back home.

No one picked him up at the station. He took a cab and had the guy drop him off three blocks away.

The first time he walked up to the house, he just walked past. It took three trips around the block to circle back and stand in the driveway.

Simmons rang the doorbell.

Simmons decided this was a terrible idea.

Simmons ran.

He didn't need a cab this time; he ran straight out of the suburbs into the downtown market area he spent so much time at as a kid. It was a nice town. A medium town. Not a city, not quaint. Just a town.

He found the nearest bar, the one he wouldn't have been seen dead at a year or two ago, and he drank just enough to drown out the embarrassing concept that he was a grown ass man who had just ding-dong-ditched his own dad.

He found a hotel. In the morning he got a rent-a-car. He drove to the other side of town.

The other side of town _wasn't_  nice. It was the place you drove by on the way to the other towns.

He found the apartment that he used to bike out to, riding along the highway. It was old brick, dead shrubbery, and there was a back entrance that never locked. 

Clara Delgado was NOT his real mother, he told himself, as he shoved the car into the tiny parking space outside the apartment.

Clara was NOT a replacement for his real mother, who was sitting in her rocking chair in a pristine, suburban house on the other side of town.

He told himself this as he knocked on door 12b with no fear.

He told himself many things as the door opened and he was immediately enveloped in a hug.

After all, he was Dutch-Irish, right? Yeah. That was what mom and dad had told him, repeatedly, intensely, forcefully. How dare he accuse his upstanding, honorable, decorated, respectable, traditional, proud father of sleeping with another woman? Not an drop of Hispanic in him. Dutch on his mom's side, Irish on his dads. Just that. 

 

* * *

 

 

"Fuck em," she said, chopping garlic like it might be their heads.

"I did disobey direct orders," Simmons responded, morose. He sat at the table, fidgeting with the uneven placement of a placemat.

"Fuck em," she said again, moving to the spinach.

"I used valuable time and resources that could have better-"

"You know who's talking right now? Your father. Fuck him too."

Simmons ignored the common condemnation. "I swore at a superior officer!"

"Well, they sounded like a terrible person."

The inside of the apartment was nice. Sun always came through the window in the kitchen. Clara always made it clean, tidy, but cozy. There was art on the walls and strange books on the shelves. She had a few consoles hooked up to the flatscreen. She had a lot of old things made of wood. It wasn't common. It was strange here. Simmons never could tell whether he felt at home or not, or if he should, or if he wanted to.

At this exact moment, he just felt nauseous. He threw his head into his hands, groaning. "You don't understand, that's not how it _works_ there."

" _Fuck_ there!" she said, turning to him and pointing with the knife, "You should have never gone _there_ in the first place. You saved someone's life, that's what the military SHOULD be for!"

"I don't- I don't know what happened to him. They didn't tell me anything."

"Yeah, SUPER fuck them."

Simmons didn't have a response for that. He was too busy sulking into this INCREDIBLY uneven placemat in front of him. Clara turned around and kept chopping.

"You know where you get your rebellion from? Me."

Simmons scoffed. "Yeah, thanks a lot."

"You should be proud! I'm proud of me. I'm proud of you!"

Something twisted in his stomach. She kept going, as if what she had just said was normal, as if any of this was normal or right, "Make any friends?"

Simmons scoffed again, less humorously. "Define _friends_."

" _Oooh_ , a _datefriend_ then?"

He blushed. "T-that's not what I meant! I meant everyone was terrible! All of them!"

She turned and gave him a look. One of those terrible signature looks. He hated those. Clara was one of the few women he could actually talk to and she still gave him the creeps. Like she always knew something he didn't. 

"God, what! What!!"

"Hmmmm," she said, turning around with a sly smile. "Nothing, I suppose. Well, anyone memorable at least? Tell me _something_."

He talked about Grif long past dinner.

 

* * *

 

 

_Simmons pushed forward. "Hey, uh, I'm here to rescue you or whatever."_

_Okay, so he's no Luke Skywalker, but this guy was no Princess Leia. "Can you walk?"_

_There was no response, just a lot of heavy breathing and nearly-whispered words. This guy was trying hard to say some word starting with an s and failing terribly._

_"Okay, well, fuck." Simmons responded. He was getting anxious again and fast. Keep it cool, keep it cool. "Okay, okay, I'm gonna help you walk."_

_He reached for an arm. No, that was the wrong way. Grif was reaching for his arm, and they were in that bar, and Simmons reached for his hand, and the lights were warm and Simmons was warm._

Wait, what? 

_And Simmons felt good. He didn't feel anxious at all, why would he feel anxious? He was drunk, and holding Grif's hand. Grif's hand had a larger palm, but Simmons had longer fingers which curled around Grif's. He remembered this. Simmons was singing really well, in his opinion, and Grif was laughing. Simmons always got a spike of pride when he got Grif to laugh._

_Simmons leaned in closer, because yes. No other reason, but if he did have a reason it would be a good one, because this was a great idea. And Grif leaned in too, and things were going awesome. And Simmons had a crazy thought, something like, what if I kissed him?  Wouldn't that be fucking wild?_

_And then he did._

But he didn't. Because that wasn't how this memory went.

_And Grif was warm, and he kissed back._

Woah there, 

_Their bodies were closer now, Grif's other hand resting on the lower half of his back, and Simmons dug deeper, closer, and Grif complied, earnestly and lazily, both at once, somehow. And it felt so good, and clumsy, and imperfect, and perfect, and Simmons wanted more, more, more, and damn, they were in public, why would Simmons do this?_

He didn't! He didn't do this, why would he do this? He wouldn't do this. And Grif wouldn't do this. Grif didn't want this. Grif didn't want him.

_The world bent, and Grif leaned back, something in his eyes shifting. "We should get back."_

_Simmons laughed and sang a different song. "Get back to where you once belonged."_

_But Grif didn't seem as amused by his singing as before. "Yeah that's the long-term goal, come on, we're both drunk."_

_But Simmons didn't want the night to end. So he held on to the hand a little tighter. "And I thought I was the buzzkill, buzzzzkill."_

_Grif pulled his hand away._

_Then they were in the alley, Simmons over Grif's shoulder, keeping him steady._

_"Hey, dyou," Simmons started._

_"Huh?" Grif responded, staring ahead at the sidewalk._

_"D'you ever, like," Simmons tried again. Then he giggled._

_"Do, do, do you ever wonder," he stuttered._

_Simmons tripped. He sniffled._

_"Oh lord," Grif said, "Simmons if you start drunk crying on me I'm dropping you here and now."_

_"Shut up," Simmons said. "I just forgot what I was going to say."_

 

Simmons woke up on the couch. 

He felt alone. 

And he wondered what he was doing here, in this home that he didn't belong to. That he shouldn't belong to. That he didn't deserve to belong to. That he wouldn't ever get to belong to more than a night. 

He left a note on the table and left before the sun came up. Clara was always an early riser. 

 

* * *

 

 

He knocked on the door to the house at a crisp 2 pm.

His dad opened it. They locked eyes.

"Hey dad," Simmons said, cautious and hopeful.

The door slammed in his face.

Simmons was expecting this. He left the letter in the mailbox.

 

* * *

 

 

Blood Gulch was hot and terrible and Simmons was determined to be stronger than it.

The first day, Simmons was convinced that Sarge was everything he'd ever dreamed of being: A perfect role model, strong, determined, in-command, charismatic, a born leader.

The second day, Simmons decided he should strongly reconsider at least _some_ of his first impressions after Sarge managed to convince himself three times over that the two blues standing on the other side of the canyon were 1. meditating in order to transcend space and time, 2. in order to plan a metaphysical ambush which would 3. melt their brains through their nostrils.

Nothing, the Sargent had stated, NOTHING could stop those "filthy blues" from going through with their diabolical scheme, with the exception of ending his and Simmons's own lives by choice, exiting The Matrix, taking control of a giant robot bug, and making it eat the blues' sleeping egg-states.

On the third day, many things exploded, and Simmons decided this man was undeniably, irrefutably insane.

On the fourth day, Sarge patted him on the back, and Simmons decided he might follow this man into the hell he surely belonged to regardless of any madness he might possess.

On the fifth day, he realized that, okay, maybe his SEEK FATHER FIGURE alarm was going off, and he might need to back up. Or, he could use it to suck-up enough to get a promotion and then have his _actual_ dad back. Yeah, cool. Smart Simmons. Use your strengths _and_ your weaknesses.

On the sixth day, Simmons saw a soldier get dropped off by a carrier up on the cliff side. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sir, 

I hope you and mother are well. I assume you've been informed of the recent events which have dictated my change in circumstances. Nevertheless, I will ensure that no further shame will be set upon the family name. More so, I continue to strive toward a decorated military career worthy of your pride. Send mother my well wishes. 

With respect, 

Richard Simmons

 

* * *

 

 

_Clara,_

_Thanks for everything. I'll try to make you proud again._

_-Simmons_

 

 


	6. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're in my dreams, you're in my nightmares, you might possibly show up in hallucinations, who knows at this point,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was really tough, I'm not sure it's my strongest one. I'm also posting this with the notion of doing edits and some minor revisions at a later time, so some little details and wording may change in the future. I just really feel like posting something. good news: so much grif simmons interaction. literally nonstop the entire chapter lmao. them new episodes got me good. 
> 
> Thank you soOOOooOOOooOO much to everyone who kudos'd and commented and said nice things about this fic!!! It means a lot to me and has been really good for me to write. Life is pretty hectic right now and it's a great way to destress and have fun so thank you a SUPER lot. I hope you like this chapter. 
> 
> Warning you now: I start jumping back and forth a bit between scenes in terms of the timeline. I hope I'm clear with when each scene is happening and keeping the flow okay!! .___.''

There were few words which could truly express the specific kind of delight Grif had experienced when he had peeked an eye open to see Simmons staggering pathetically up that final hill on the cliff to find him. One very dramatic, simple, four-lettered word in particular came to mind upon that singular moment which of course, Grif didn't care to speak or define, but there were few others that could truly do the moment justice. What a short, wonderful, timeless moment that had been. So nice.

In contrast, there were many, many words to describe the multitude of emotions he had experienced in the moments and hours thereafter, many of which were not _quite_ as pleasant as the initial choice vocabulary.  

If he was terribly honest, he thought to himself, as he limped down the long, narrow cliff side, a maroon-clad arm supporting half his weight off of a now possibly _ruined_ knee, he was actually still pretty happy. Simmons and him were at the same base! Grif may not die of boredom! He can guarantee at least _one_  (1) other person at this base will have an inkling of common sense! It made life just ever, ever, ever so slightly less of a giant pile of never-ending bullshit. 

And yet. _And yet._

There was no way, _in hell,_ that he was going to let Simmons know even an increment of this delight after what had just happened. No way. 

"I _said_ I was sorry," Simmons said, testily. Suspiciously unlike someone who was truly sorry for their actions.

Yeah. If Simmons was going to be this petty, Grif could take that pettiness and double it. No, _triple._ Dick Simmons, you think you know petty? You haven't _met_ petty.   
  
"No, you said sorry that _I_ decided to take a nap on the job!" Grif retorted back, twitching at the pain in his leg as he shuffled forward. He could ever so slightly feel Simmons adjust his grip on the back of his armor to help support him.  
  
Simmons squinted through his visor at him, the horrible, never-ending sun of Blood Gulch silhouetting Grif in orange. "What’s the _difference_?"  
  
"The difference, _Simmons_ , is that if you were saying it right, you'd be apologizing for pushing me off a fucking cliff, but instead _I'm_ somehow the bad guy."

"Look, all I'm saying is that maybe I deserve a little more credit for hauling my ass up there in the first place just to see if you were _alive_ , only to find out you were just being lazy! Not to mention thatif you had been doing what you were _supposed_ to be doing and come down the cliff to properly introduce yourself we wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place!"  
  
"Right, but all I'm saying is, you pushed me off a goddamn cliff."  
  
" _I didn't-_ " Simmons squeaked, and god, Grif had missed that. That was some hilarious shit. " _I didn't mean to push you off a cliff!!!_  Who takes a nap on a cliff right next to the ledge? And it's not my fault you jump like a cat just because someone tosses a rock your way-"  
  
"' _Tossed'_ , you say it like you were lightly tossing a salad- you kicked a _boulder_ and it hit me so hard it practically _ricocheted_ , Simmons. I'm lucky I didn't _die_."  
  
Simmons rolled his eyes under his helmet. Grif could tell. He could fucking sense it. "Oh you're just a drama queen, it wasn’t a BOULDER and the drop was only, like, ten feet-"  
  
“It could’ve been more! What then? What happens next time you get mad at me near a questionably perilous drop?”

Simmons seemed to be deliberating this as they walked; Grif could practically see the little storm cloud brewing over his head. It had been comical, ultimately, but the actually possibly twisted knee had partially killed the mood. The only strange joy left to gain from this was arguing with Simmons again.

After a moment, Simmons grumbled, “Next time don’t take a nap on a ledge when you decide to act like a jackass.”

Grif groaned. Well, that is, he had _initially_ been enjoying the argument, but it was starting to go as steeply downhill as the cliff side. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to tell you to fuck off when you showed up, I just-"

Simmons scoffed disbelievingly. “Oh really? Pardon me, then please explain why you did exactly, totally that?”

“I thought I was hallucinating!”

Simmons movement hitched just infinitesimally.

Grif continued, “I thought for a moment it _might_ be you when you spoke, but it's so fucking hot here I thought I-”

“Why the hell would you hallucinate _me?”_   Simmons blurted out, voice still in offense mode but laced with that funny squeak.

 _Because you show up in my dreams,_ Grif thought,immediately followed by a resolute _fuck._

“Because you show up in my nightmares.” Grif deadpanned. "Hallucination isn't much of a stretch."

Unable to pinch his nose for a nasal effect, he made do with twisting his voice a couple notes higher and more rancorous: " _Grif, clean up your laundry, Grif, stop snoring, Grif, cigarettes are bad fo- ”_

Simmons promptly threw his arms up, dropping him. 

“Ow, fuck!” His voice hitched in panic as he wobbled forward on his bad leg, falling to the ground and nearly off the goddamn cliff again. “I was kidding, geez, asshole!”

 _"Me????_ " Simmons spun around with a flare of anger. Grif looked up at him and read the tension in his armored movements, looking like a bottle rocket about to blast off. This was not where he had expected this to go. "I didn't even know if I'd ever see you again, and I climb up a fucking mountain and there you are, and, and nothing! Nope! So sorry I thought that you'd have more to say to me than _'fuck off, I'm taking a nap!'_   and yeah, I shouldn't have kicked a rock at you, whatever, but I at _least_ thought-"

Simmons stopped abruptly. Then started again, “I just, thought, like…” then faltered once more, quickly losing steam. He almost looked embarrassed.

And suddenly, for the first time, it occurred to Grif that for all the time he had spent fondly remembering Simmons's nasally voice and compounded layers of egotism, his bad singing and snide loathing for those he claimed were superior, maybe during all that time,  _Simmons_ had been somewhere far away thinking of _Grif_.

God knows what the man could have been reminiscing about enough to miss him. But nevertheless, Simmons was standing here somehow miraculously offended at the notion that Grif...didn't...miss him? What the fuck. Were they actually friends?

Hm. Didn't quite roll off the tongue yet, considering their current situation. They were more like a prospect, a possibility, a potential. For... something. Surely something.

"Simmons..." Grif said, as if a slow epiphany had crept up on him, startling Simmons out of his stupor. 

Grif put a hand to his heart and looked up at him, doing his best to look as devastatingly shocked and heartbroken as possible in front of the now stock-still maroon soldier.

 _ **"Simmons...!"**   _he said again, three times as dramatic, four times as faux offended, allowing this dawning horror to build anticipation.

Simmons looked _so fucking confused._

Grif absolutely could not help but grin as Simmons floundered. "Wh-What?! _What!!!_ What are you doing!!!"

He tried his damnedest to leave the smile out of his voice, only mostly succeeding. "Simmons, I'm hurt... _You really didn't miss our shitty arguments?"_

Simmons stared at him. 

Then he snorted.

"I fucking hate you," he laughed. 

Grif kept up the faux offense. Well, nearly. It had devolved at the sound of Simmons's giggling. "I'm serious, this is the _best part!_ Do you know how many people are _terrible_ to argue with? You should be jumping for joy at how much of a chaotic shit-show this conversation is!"

Simmons scoffed, but the laughter was thick in his voice. "Yeah, it's the light of my life." 

"It was a _nightmare_ , Simmons, how did you even survive without me? Who was there for you when you needed to let out all of those nerdy anger issues? Who did you talk shit about your superiors to?"

Simmons snapped back gleefully, "Yeah, and who got you off your fat ass while I was gone? I would have assumed no one, except you must have lost some weight if that ship was able to carry you all the way here."

Grif laughed in surprise. There we go. "Who helped you take that stick out of your ass every morning before breakfast?" 

"Who made sure you didn't inhale the entire food supply at lunch?"

"See!" Grif exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "And to think what we would have been doing if I hadn't told you to fuck off, and if you hadn't punted a rock at me, and I hadn't fallen off a medium-sized cliff?"

"Well, if we're talking within the context of cliffs, I'd have to say it probably would qualify more as a small-"

"Where would we be Simmons. Nay, _who?"_

"Proper soldiers actually doing our jobs." 

"Terrible." Grif tsked. 

“Whatever,” Simmons said, smiling. “Gimme your arm again, fat ass.”

He reached out. Grif took it. “Kiss ass.”

 

* * *

 

 

Simmons blinked. The white of the snow was blinding.

 

Sidewinder.

 

A hand like a claw reached and caught Grif's ankle.

 

Out of the corner of Simmons's eye Grif was down, his helmet nearly bouncing off of the compacted snow as he was thrown off his feet and slammed into the ground, suddenly sliding, and fast.

 

The world became a crystallized singularity as panic shot adrenaline through Simmons's entire body.

 

**"GRIF"**

 

Simmons leapt. He hit the ground feeling none of the impact, sliding toward orange armor, but not fast enough. 

 

The thick black synthetic of Grif's gloves dug into the snow, and thank god, thank god it was slowing him down, barely.

 

"Simmons-grab my hand- _help_ -"

 

Grif sounded terrified.

 

Simmons was terrified.

 

Their hands met, immediately clasping together, the weight immense as Simmons held on like a vice grip, but it wasn't enough, Grif was slipping-

 

"Hold on, hold on!!!" Simmons said, pulling with everything he had and nothing to leverage the weight. "Don't let go!!!"

 

Time slowed down and the moment stilled. He watched their hands, Grif's fingers getting looser. Simmons couldn't speak. He couldn't think. He could only hold on, hold on, hold on-

 

A moment of horror passed as he felt Grif's hand slip by the centimeter that he couldn't get back, and he was gone, he-

 

 

* * *

 

 

Simmons woke up, drenched in sweat and gasping.

He clapped a hand over his mouth quickly, eyes darting across the dark room at Grif sleeping in the opposite bunk. He held his breath for what felt like ages, body shaking with the strain. 

Grif snored lightly. Simmons breathed out slowly, his heartbeat deafening. 

They had set up a temporary base in the derelict remains of another Project Freelancer base, after their hunt for Epsilon had once again been stalled by a lack of leads and information. It took incessant convincing before Carolina had begrudgingly agreed to allow the Reds and Blues the rest they needed to continue the journey.

It took three nights before she stopped losing her mind over the fact that they weren't sleeping in their armor, but now he wished he had taken her warnings to heart. His black underclothes did little to make him feel protected, and neither did the shitty moth-ball blanket they had found in this bunk room. He felt embarrassingly prone to attack, like when he was a kid and couldn't let his feet peek out of the blankets in case a monster climbed out from under his bed.

There were over twenty bunk rooms, but for the sake of safety they had unanimously agreed to pair off into twos. As per usual, they didn't have to ask each other; Simmons just found whatever room Grif had already fallen asleep in during the first night and taken the opposite bunk. 

It had been years now. Years, and somehow he was still most comfortable living with this filth pile of a human being, astonishingly. But it felt wrong to not be nearby. Maybe it was because the snores would drone out the strange, quiet whirring of electronics in his body. Maybe it was because he found comfort in something familiar. Maybe it was because Grif had nightmares sometimes, and neither of them talked about it, but maybe if Simmons was just...there-

This time, however, Simmons was the one who would be causing problems. Especially if he couldn't calm down. Grif could occasionally be a surprisingly light sleeper, and god knows how awkward it might be if he woke up to a Dick Simmons Panic Attack. 

He tried to breathe quietly, in and out, focusing on his heartbeat. 

_Their hands met, immediately clasping together, the weight immense as Simmons held on like a vice grip, but it wasn't enough, Grif was slipping-_

Everything was fine. Everything was fine. They escaped. They won. Grif lived. Everyone lived.

Grif almost hadn't lived. Church was possibly dead, if he was still alive in the Epsilon unit. Like that wasn't depressing and disturbing on it's own.

But Grif? The one he was having nightmares over? was fine.

He almost hadn't been. They all could have died. Grif could have kept falling.

And this wasn't the first time. Memories flashed in Simmons's mind of Grif’s mess of a body after being hit by the warthog. Blood everywhere.

Then the surgery. Or plural surgeries. He pretended it didn’t bother him. That’s what you do.

Bodies, blood, limbs, he couldn't stand it-

He knew it reminded him of Rhadaman- of mangled bodies lining hallways, the poor asshole who survived surrounded by blood and dead people and god, like he needed more things he could never talk about without having a complete and utter meltdown, and god, it was so short, he was there only for a while, but-

Suddenly it was all a blur, welts from childhood beatings to the discoloration of a dead body to bloody surgery tools and

Simmons curled in on himself, his head resting on his knees, and tried to hold in the hitches and hiccups pulling at his dry throat. He knew how to calm down from this. He'd been doing it for days now, ever since Sidewinder. Hell, he'd done it his whole life for one reason or another. He was good at this. He was good at this.

His breathing hitched, hard. Fuck, he wasn't good at this. Another hitch, painful against his strained throat. Panic seeped in from the corners of his mind. Goddammit.

He needed to leave. He needed to leave the room. He started focusing on the single goal of leaving. If he was going to panic, he needed to do it somewhere else.

He tried to drop his feet to the floor, but one leg was tangled in the fucking blanket.

He tripped.

He fell.

One of his metallic parts made a sharp sound hitting the floor.

Grif moved.

Simmons inhaled sharply. Fuck.

"Woah, Sssimmons?" Grif slurred, still not quite awake but sitting up in bed, squinting out at his now disheveled form. "Tell me if we're getting attacked."

Simmons had a few options. He could bolt, but that would obviously give away that something was wrong, the consequences of which could be disastrous. He could pretend to be sleepwalking, but he wasn't willing to bet on any extravagant acting skills on his part, especially now.

A simple lie? Easier, at the least, but still a hassle.

"Uh, just got startled, sorry," Shit, wrong wrong _wrong_. Too close to the truth, voice wobbly, and apologizing? Please. Since when do they apologize to each other for anything?

There was just enough light to see Grif squinting at him, calculating. He opened his mouth to speak-

"Snake, thought there was a snake," Simmons responded to the unasked question. His breath hitched slightly, panic still bubbling. "Keep fuh-forgetting there aren't aniny snakes here."

Grif was still squinting. "Simmons-"

Simmons pulled at the blanket still tangled at his feet, attempting to unravel himself in the event where he may require a fast escape, which was looking to be the best option after all. "Damn snakes though, ha ha haha, really creep me out, stuhstupid snakes, slimy skin-"

"Snakes aren't slimy."

Simmons stopped mid movement, looking up at Grif. "What?"

Grif was sitting on the edge of his bed now, looking at him. _Really_ looking at him.

Simmons realized suddenly that it reminded him of Clara. Maybe it wasn’t a woman thing; maybe it was just a _smarts_ thing. Maybe it was just a _people-who-understand-people-the-way-Simmons-never-could_ thing. Because sometimes Grif would look at him like he understood something about Simmons that he couldn’t understand about himself.

But there was a difference: Clara used it to play with him. Never cold, but always distant, always above, always “I know something you don’t, and I’m willing to tease you about it.” Sometimes Simmons felt like she was trying to help him come to conclusions on his own with a friendly push in the right direction, but a twisted and hurt part of him would counter like a sharp knife, "She knows you'll never understand. She's just doing it to let you know she's better." 

When Grif looked at him like this, it was never sly, never teasing. Grif had a totally different face for teasing, because those were safe waters. Those were “We are who we try to be” expressions. Those were the banter, the sarcasm, the wonderful bullshit tirades they danced in circles around for days after weeks after years. Years. 

This was different. It was a different part of him, looking at a different part of Simmons. 

It gave him goosebumps. His breathing hitched again.

" _Snakes aren't slimy,_ Simmons,” Grif said, breaking eye contact to rub a hand over his face, fists digging out the sand in his eyes. The break in the silence jolted Simmons out of his daze and back into the ridiculousness of their situation. “They're like, smooth and leathery. Kai and I used to catch them for fun back home."

Simmons stared, breathing still uneven. "Uh." He took a deep inhale. "Okay."

His mind scrambled for a fix, another _anything_ to bullshit about, but the room was spinning, and he had a feeling that he was not doing well at hiding the pained borderline hyperventilating that he was trying to get under control.

Grif's voice was foggy, like it was coming from a distance. "Uh, Simmons?"

"Okay." Simmons said, again, slightly slurred. Leave. Leave the room.

The room was spinning. Simmons tried to push himself up from it but he felt weak. His head was light. Things were fuzzy. And things were not going well, and he should have seen this coming, why was he like this, why did he always fuck up like this, this was bad, this was really bad-

"Simmons, you gotta calm down okay?"

Grif was coming closer. Fuck. 

"I-" Simmons started, airily. He gulped down oxygen, suddenly feeling as if he was drowning. His throat kept constricting. 

"Woah," Grif said, "Okay, big panic attack. That's whatever though, it's cool, you can breathe." 

This wasn’t part of Plan A B or C. All of those plans were actually made to keep Grif away, as a matter of fact.

"Simmons, listen to me, everything is gonna be fine." He said more insistently, kneeling down in front of Simmons, looking awkward but calm. "It doesn't matter to me what you're freaking out about, you don't have to tell me."

That was actually...very relieving, but he was distracted by the jarring notion that Grif was trying to _lead him through his panic attack._

This wasn’t fair. Grif was trying to _help_ , and that just wasn’t fucking fair.

Simmons head was getting fuzzy now though, lacking the oxygen needed to properly ventilate through his lungs. His vision was blurry, and his head began to nod. His eyes fluttered.

"Hey heyheyheyhey, stay with me here Simmons, deep breaths." Grif said, hands hovering near Simmons's shoulders, wary and hesitant, ready to catch him if he fell. Unfair.

But he _was_ supposed to be breathing. He was supposed to be breathing. He inhaled sharply, gulping down oxygen. He grabbed Grif's arms without thinking as he leaned forward again, Grif grabbing his arms in return. 

"Uh, okay, keep breathing. Jesus your hands are cold." Hands now. Grif was holding his hands. Simmons could barely feel it. He wished he could. He took another painful breath.

He curled forward more and found his head resting on Grif’s chest. It was soft and reassuring and _grounding_ , and so startlingly different than armor. Grif was wearing an old t-shirt he always kept packed from Maui. The shitty t-shirt that Simmons always insisted he should wash more often. Simmons could tell it actually recently was. Fucking amazing. 

His breathing hitched again. He could feel Grif gently release one of his hands to rest it on Simmons’s upper back, the weight of his arm a welcoming support. Unfair. Goddamn unfair. 

“Just...I feel like a broken record here, but uh, keep breathing. It’s okay.”

“You--” Simmons choked out, then inhaled sharply. “This-”

“Hey shh, have I mentioned breathing? Not sure if I brought that one up yet. Crazy idea.” Any semblance of potential harshness was nonexistent. Grif's voice was surprisingly soft. He was just full of fucking surprises tonight, the asshole. "Talking is after breathing. Multi-step plan here, you love those, right nerd?"

Simmons tightened his grip on the hand still being held loosely between the two of them, blood circulating enough to maintain a proper grip. He could feel his body relaxing, bit by bit, his throat less constrained. He sighed into the ratty t-shirt and allowed himself for the moment to take comfort in the familiar scent. 

Grif sighed, tired and relieved. Simmons could feel the breath tickle the top of his head as Grif’s chin rested there.

“Okay, cool. Cool. Keep breathing. It’s all good.” He said, mumbling quietly. Perhaps the only thing stopping this from being an entirely awkward situation was that they were just both so goddamn tired. They might just fall asleep here. 

Or not. Simmons was regaining consciousness. He should probably get his head off of Grif’s chest. He probably should. He was angry, after all. He should be angry. He should be upset about this. He should push Grif away, tell him he can’t do this, he can’t help Simmons. Especially when he won’t accept help himself.

Suddenly it hurt, remembering all of the nights he stayed away. And he knew it would keep being the same. This hadn't changed anything. Nothing ever changed them, it seemed. It was a blessing and a curse.

He found the word for it, curling into Grif more despite himself. “Hypocrite.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He had found Grif at the top of the base, smoking a cigarette under the stars of the canyon. 

“Grif,” Simmons hissed, creeping toward him, eyes darting out into the darkness of Blood Gulch. He doubted the blues would really do a night attack, but it was preferable not to die. “You should be wearing your armor!”

Grif didn’t turn to him, but he did respond: “ _You’re_ not.”

That was true. He had followed Grif out from the bunks without his armor.

Simmons hesitated, then walked the remaining space to sit down next to the smoking soldier. Simmons pulled his legs up to his chest. The days were hot in Blood Gulch, but the nights were cold. He tried not to shiver. 

“You shouldn't be smoking cigarettes either,” Simmons mumbled, staring out into the distance of the valley. " _My_ lungs, remember." 

“Mm.”

They fell into silence. It would have been comfortable if not for the matter of why Simmons had followed Grif up there in the first place.

They had been sharing a room for a year or so by then, but Simmons had never seen Grif wake up like that before. He had never seen Grif that panicked. Never seen him that quiet or that upset when he realized that Simmons had witnessed it all. 

He wondered if it was a new development, or if it had always been happening. How many had Simmons not seen? Was he dreaming about the surgery? Or something before that? After all, they didn't talk about their pasts much with each other. There were so many better, dumber, easier things to talk about. Simmons certainly wasn't ready to broach any of those subjects, nor would he ever be he suspected. But he never had realized that maybe Grif had his own fair share of nightmares.

And yet, sitting there in the empty room after Grif walked out, Simmons sat there with the dawning realization that he might actually want to help, at the possible expense of his own lock-box of emotional fragility. 

He knew what a nightmare looked like. He knew what it was like to drag yourself out of that alone. On the other hand, he certainly didn’t know what it was like to get help either, so how the hell was he supposed to know how to give it?

He had no idea. He didn’t know where to start. He felt young and stupid, sitting there. But he wasn’t anything if he didn't try.

They sat and stared out at the stars for a while. Simmons could have named a few, but he was unsure if it was the proper time. 

He had to try something.

“...You wanna talk about it?” Simmons asked. And waited.

Grif exhaled, smoke trailing out into the canyon, not looking his way. “Simmons, I’m gonna do you a favor. The answer to that question, in this situation, and any like it, is always gonna be no.”

Simmons looked at him then. _Really_ looked at him.

Grif looked tired in a different way than Simmons had ever seen before. And it made him want to know. It made him desperately want to understand. Because with Grif, it felt like he was close. It felt like for the first time in his life, maybe he really could understand someone.

“Just...thought I'd ask," Simmons said. 

Grif didn’t look at him as he stood up slowly, flicking the cigarette out over the edge of the base. “Yeah, well. Don’t bother." 


	7. Botched Constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night time talks and afternoons in the shade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> L i s t e n, from what I've read, Blood Gulch's "Endless Days" aren't canon, so give me occasional night times ok. I need this. 
> 
> also i have no fucking excuse for the second half of this chapter aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa im in grimmons heeeell
> 
> thank you to everyone who's commented and kudos'd, i love you all so much and you make me so fucking happy all the time. I know this is a short chapter but hopefully you get a kick out of it?

“And I think that’s Cassiopeia. I think.”

Simmons withdrew the hand he was pointing with to rest on his lap. He had been laying on his back, lanky arms and legs splayed out over the deck of red base. His silent audience of one was leaning against the support beam, leg dangling over the edge of the wall.

It had been a while since he’d started on this particular train of thought, pointing constellations out by memory and not bothering to check if Dexter’s line of sight followed the gesture or not. Cassiopeia, Pisces, Andromeda...

Just keep talking. That was the important part. 

“Everything’s all fucked up and jumbled out here though,” Simmons rambled on. “It’s a different view. Different constellations. From Sol every planet’s view is the same, but out here you have a totally different vantage point.”

Grif didn’t respond. But that was fine, because he was starting to get used to it during this time of night. Simmons knew by now not to expect any form of communication from Grif until at least a half hour had passed between them. 

“Like, Pegasus looks like his wings got chopped off and skewered. I went over this star system’s astronomical guide of course, so I know which ones are which, and once you figure it out it’s easy to distinguish the rest.”

Simmons quirked his head to squint at one of the constellations. 

“So it’s fine really. Andromeda just looks like she’s getting fucked by a fish now. Or maybe she’s being eaten by Cetus, I guess. So the fucked-by-a-fish look is actually more canonically precise to the original fable actually. Huh. Weird.”

The first form of communication would usually be a question about whatever the hell Simmons had been spewing about at the time. 

_Did you really just say with a straight face that your preferred location for flirting was chess club?_

_Where the fuck did you learn Sangheili origami and why?_

_Where **did** you end up hiding Donut’s ABBA collection? Not that I want to give it back. I’ve heard enough Dancing Queen for a lifetime or six._

It was never what he actually expected every time he followed Grif out here in the dead of night: _What the fuck are you doing, Simmons? Why are you out here, Simmons? Don't you realize I want to be alone, Simmons? Why can't you get a clue, Simmons? **Leave me alone, Simmons.**_

What this really meant, or at least what Simmons took from it, was that he had been accepted. Grif wasn’t saying _leave me alone_ or _stop talking_ or _give up_. He was saying, _tell me more. Keep going. I’m okay with this._

Maybe it even meant, _I like your company._ Maybe it meant, _this is what I need after the nightmares._ Maybe it meant, _this is the only way I can open up to you right now._  

Well, Simmons was hypothesizing. Maybe it really just meant that there was some part of Grif that just pitied Simmons's weird attempts at connection. 

On this night, Grif huffed a tiny breath of amusement, quiet against the stillness of the cold canyon but deafening to Simmons’s mind. “And _how_ do you know all this stuff?”

Simmons blinked, startled momentarily out of his long rant.

“Oh,” he said. “I wanted to be an astronomer when I was like, five or something.”

Grif deadpanned, ”Of course _you_ knew what an astronomer even _was_ when you were five.”

He let the snark slide past him, feeling relaxed in this space they had created for themselves to the point where he felt no pressure to respond scathingly. Simmons was surprised to find the word for it: relaxed. He couldn’t think of a time when that word had ever been relevant to anything he had ever done.

“Well, I would watch Star Trek a lot as a kid. I thought the navigation systems were cool. The idea of traveling out into space on grand adventures and all that bullshit. Mapping the stars.”

Simmons continued staring into the sky. “What a fucking party _that’s_ been so far.”

He hadn’t looked, but he could tell that Grif had been staring at him for a while now during his ramblings. He could feel his eyes on him. “That why you joined the military?”

“Huh...Well, not really? But it kind of led to that, I guess. I mean, my father hated it, said it was a shitty idea essentially, that I should join the military like him if I wanted to do the family proud. So I just focused on that instead. Good opportunities anyway.”

His tongue had gotten loose. He didn’t know if he had ever mentioned his father before. Maybe too relaxed.

Grif had snorted. “No offense, but your dad sounds like an asshole.”

Simmons turned his head to look at Grif in surprise. He always felt a little anxious when people talked bad about his father. Like the man might swoop down and beat the shit out of them both at a moment's notice. But beneath it, he felt a little bit stunned that Grif would say so. Grif seemed unperturbed.

“What makes you say _that?”_  

Grif gave him a weird sort of face, his brows a little furrowed with an off-put, uncertain smirk. “Well, one, parents who tell their kids that their dreams are bad are pretty easy to mark off as shit bags. Pretty straightforward there. And two, telling your kids to join the military is double bullshit.”

Simmons kept staring. “What? Wait, no, I mean, it was a pretty silly idea, the astronomer thing-”

“What’s weird about that?” Grif interjected. “We’re in _outer space._ That’s an actual career title when you live in a science fiction military dystopia.”

An uneasy confusion bit at his stomach. He felt that maybe he had gotten off track, lost the discussion. He just wasn’t sure what Grif was getting at. _It had been a bad idea._ That had been made explicitly clear.

“Well, the military has jobs like that, essentially, they need navigators and all, not that I’m...it’s kind of...” Simmons reached. Was he defending his father? What was he trying to accomplish here? “And I couldn’t just say no.”

“Why not?” Grif said, mostly casual. Mostly. There was a weird undercurrent in this conversation that Simmons couldn’t identify but was concerned that he was the cause for. “Sometimes you need to be a maverick, Simmons.”  

Simmons realized the issue suddenly. Ah, right, he almost forgot that people existed that talked back to their parents without the risk of welting.

He chuckled a little hollowly. “Yeah, you don’t know my father. Or my family. Mavericks don't...they get disowned or...yeah.”

His stomach twisted. He was possibly already disowned, actually. He had almost forgotten.

“Well, good riddance.” Grif said, simply. Like it was simple. Like any of what Simmons had just said had been simple. He took out a cigarette and held it in his mouth, fishing for a lighter. “If you ever decide to be cool enough to get disowned by your shit family, feel free to drop by Hawaii.”

...Well.

Grif didn't have nightmares often, Simmons had noted over time. But when he had em, he fucking had em.

Simmons would wake up every time. He couldn't help it, he was a light sleeper anyway, and he'd always be so alarmed that he'd bolt upright, and then it would be too late to pretend to be asleep, because Grif would get his bearings and immediately see Simmons staring back at him like a deer in headlights. 

It was always the same. Grif would say something noncommittal and walk out before Simmons could say a goddamn thing. 

He had told Simmons, don't ask. But he wanted to be there if Grif decided otherwise. 

So Simmons would follow him, every time, out to wherever place Grif deemed fit, and he'd sit down and talk. Just, talk.

It was a tricky system. If Simmons got emotional, he risked pushing Grif away. If Grif initiated any vague form of emotional intimacy _first_ , then it was all right to continue whilst treading carefully. After all, that was ultimately the goal of this whole thing to begin with, right? Be there for Grif or whatever the hell that meant.

But sometimes the initiator was a blurred identity. Had Simmons started it? Had Grif? And what was the rule for emotional curve balls which sent Simmons reeling, especially ones like this?

Simmons had never had somewhere to _drop by_ before, besides Clara's, and that wasn’t exactly ideal. He would come back home from her house as a kid and his parents would know where he had been, who, why.

One time they nearly called the cops on Clara, he remembered. He had to stay away for a year or two. Clara would meet him at strange places without warning and Simmons would say, _Clara, you can’t be here,_ and she’d laugh and take him out for fries, and sometimes he would run and break her heart. 

Could they get to him in Hawaii? No, there was no way. They didn’t care enough to track him down that far.

He tried to imagine what it’d be like to get off a plane in Hawaii with Grif meeting him there. Would Grif meet him there? Yeah, Grif liked to drive. He probably would drive too fast down the roads, the bastard. What were the roads like? What did the wind feel like? Where would they be driving to? Did Grif have a nice home? Did he have a home?

Questions arose with every new possibility, and it nearly shook him to his core.

So if he looked away, back into the sky, and hoped that the dim glow of Grif’s cigarette didn’t reflect the fragility plastered on Simmons’s face, it was because he didn’t want to ruin what he had been spending so much time and effort and careful social crafting into implementing. This wasn’t about him anyway.

Or maybe he wasn’t quite as ready for this system as he thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t ready to get real. Maybe he wasn’t ready to give his fair share of emotional honesty.

“I’ve never even been to an ocean,” Simmons said absently.

Grif nearly choked on his cigarette.

 

* * *

 

Grif yanked on the steering wheel, hit the breaks, and felt _alive_.

The jeep drifted beautifully, creating clouds of dust as the tires hit a bump, and suddenly they were airborne. Simmons was hanging out the side of the passenger seat holding dynamite in one hand and clinging on to the jeep with another,  _whooping,_ laughing and shouting.

When they hit the ground again Grif grinned and pressed on the gas, shooting them forward with a pump of adrenaline.

And he forgot about Blood Gulch, and he forgot about war, and he forgot about silence. Because _this_ was living.

They veered toward an old worn structure left behind by who fucking cared, and Grif shouted over the sound of the engine roaring, “Simmons, now!” 

“Right!” Simmons shouted, dropping into the seat beside him and pulling out a lighter and lit the dynamites string as the structure drew nearer.

“Fuck, toss it!” Grif shouted as Simmons heaved himself back into standing, and with the luckiest aim in the universe, chucked it toward the shack-like building as they passed by.

 

It exploded on impact.

 

Grif’s vision went white and the jeep physically hurtled sideways into the air.

 

Suddenly they were tumbling left, and Grif couldn’t hear anything, but he could feel Simmons get thrown against him as he clung to the steering.

 

They had reached for each other just in time for the jeep to hit the ground upside down and fucking _bounce_ off the dirt again, the only thing keeping Simmons in the jeep being Grif’s death grip.

 

The second time it impacted was on the driver’s side, and Grif’s helmet smacked the ground with it.

 

The third time was the last, having just enough momentum to turn upright and shove itself directly into a ditch.

 

The world took a few seconds to stop spinning, and a few more for the buzzing in his ears to settle.

 

“Woah,” he breathed. His voice sounded far away from himself.

 

“Woah,” Simmons responded, sounding farther, despite being very, _very_ close.

 

Grif must have lost hold of the steering at some point and just been hurtling, because he was sprawled out over the driver and passenger seats, and Simmons was sprawled out on top of him, one arm wrapped around Grif’s helmet and the other propping Simmons up to look down at him, and as Grif’s mind cleared he started realizing, oh, OH.

Simmons was on top of him, _Simmons_ was on _top_ of him, _Simmons was on top of him_ -

If Simmons realized how startled Grif was he wasn’t showing it, because as the buzzing in his ears faded out he realized that Simmons was laughing, really really laughing, exhilarated, and Grif could feel him shaking under his armor from the adrenaline.

“Holy shit,” Simmons breathed, arm not cradling Grif’s helmet anymore but now holding on to his shoulder as a balance. “Holy shit, that was fucking crazy. I think we did _better_ than Dukes of Hazzard.”

Grif’s entire body was humming from the adrenaline still, but now there was an entirely different kind of adrenaline going through him too. “That’s not hard,” he said dazedly.

“True. We should probably never do something that blatantly stupid again,” Simmons said, laughing shakily, coming down from the rush. “Are you okay? I think your head got rammed into the ground at one point. I think mine might have too, I can’t tell. The world is still kind of spinning.”

“Uuuh,” Grif said, the words escaping him, trying not to move his head in order to avoid indicating his line of sight trailing downward to the lack of space between them, because _holy shit._

Grif’s lack of a clever rebuttal seemed to sober Simmons up a little. “Oh fuck, maybe you do have a concussion, here.”

He doubted he had a concussion, but he wasn’t sure how to explain why exactly he was acting like a total idiot, since somehow Simmons seemed to have missed the fact that he was practically still straddling him, more concerned with unlatching Grif’s helmet for him.

Suddenly everything was darker and a lot less orange without the artificial tint of a visor. They must have hit a spot of shade.

Simmons was unlatching his own helmet, muttering about checking for injuries. Their helmets were tossed to the side as Simmons’s sharp eyes- one deep and brown, the other artificially red- stared straight into Grif’s.

Simmons flipped him the bird. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Grif blinked and gave the freckled man a deadpan expression. “Fuck you too, that’s how many.”

Simmons smirked. “Alright, you’re fine. I don’t see any injuries or anything either. Am I bleeding anywhere or…”

His gaze fell down to his own hand resting on Grif’s shoulder, down the chest, down, down, down…

“Uh,” Simmons said, and Grif watched the blush flush his cheeks with red.

“Yeah,” Grif said, unsure of what else to say.

“Here, let me uh,” Simmons said, a bit of a squeak in his voice, and tried to shift. Grif thanked god that he was wearing armor to disguise any possible physical reaction he may or may not have been experiencing, because Simmons lost his balance and ended up just adjusting himself closer, and now their faces were inches apart.

“Fuck!” Simmons hissed, nearly in Grif’s ear. “My foot is stuck.”

“Stuck? Stuck in what?”

“Right here!” Simmons said, nodding his head down toward his armored leg, the lower half inside a seam between the driver and passenger seats, just wide enough to have his foot jammed in. “I think a part of my armor is hooked on to something.”

“Hey, I think you’re bleeding.”

Grif had caught the sight of red meddled in with Simmons’s burnished hair. He looked up at him startled. “I am?”

“Yeah, turn your head right. No, _your_ right, genius.”

"That isn't an uncommon misunderstanding to make," Simmons said testily, but angled his head so, eyeing Grif as an orange-armored glove reached for the wound, hesitatingly placing the palm of his hand on the side to angle him better, thumb on his jaw and fingers along his neck.

He tried to be gentle, examining the small injury. It looked shallow. He wasn't too concerned. 

Grif navigated his thumb to brush some of Simmons’s hair out of view, the rest of his hand still cupping the back of his head.

He avoided looking into Simmons’s eyes, but could tell that the maroon soldier was staring intently at him, studying him. What did he see?

“I think you just got nicked,” Grif said, absently, gaze falling from the wound to Simmons’s hair, a brownish red. The bangs had grown out ever so slightly over the metallic sheen of the right side of his face, contrasting with the light tawny complexion of his freckled skin. His neck on this side was still human, and underneath the fabric of his glove he could feel its soft texture.

It dawned on him that he hadn’t touched an actual human in a while; they’d all seen each other out of armor at one point or another, but it had been a year or two since he’d been stationed at Blood Gulch and even longer since he’d touched anyone.

Actually, the last time had been that night at basic, Simmons and him drunkenly stumbling over themselves, hands intertwined. 

The warmth and intimacy and the desire of the memory melded with the present, as his eyes glazed over and his hand rested more comfortably on the side of Simmons’s head, thumb brushing idly at his hair, lost in the minute sensations.

Grif’s eyes trailed down to the length of his tense jaw, down to his throat, his chin, his chapped mouth, the heat crossing the curve of his cheekbones, freckles like star clusters, and bemusedly he wondered if he could map out botched constellations the way Simmons did when he looked up at the sky.

Grif had, _"I think that's Cassiopeia"_ on the tip of his tongue before the trail finally circled back to Simmons's eyes and the words caught in his throat. 

Simmons looked a little bit gone, eyes slightly lidded, gaze drifting up to meet Grif’s.

Dex didn’t dare to breathe, recognizing something he had only seen once or twice before in Simmons’s eyes.

_Fire._

Somewhere in the distance of his conscience he could hear an alarm blaring, and he had the smallest inkling of a notion to move away, stop whatever was happening, but his body hadn't caught up. His hand moved on it’s own before his mind told him it was a bad idea, trailing down and ghosting his palm and fingers along Simmons’s jaw.

Simmons’s eyelashes very nearly _fluttered_  with the tiniest intake of breath.

Fuck.

He snapped back into consciousness fully, and everything was telling him, _holy shit, fire alarm, do not play with fire, back the fuck up,_ and he could suddenly hear his heart pounding in his chest again like it had been doing this whole time, feel tingling through his whole body, and blood pumping and heat, so much fucking heat fighting the cool of the shade. 

But also, his brain was stupid, so dumb, because something was also telling him, _of course you can play this off, there was nothing wrong with this, nothing wrong or out of the norm with the way Simmons seemed to lean into his touch, the way his eyes fluttered, the way his head was tilted toward ever so slightly._

"You okay?" Grif said, because hey, maybe the nerd just had a concussion. Good reason to lean his palm back into the side of Simmons's face, let the man lean into it, let Simmons look at him _like that._ Some mix of relaxed and tense and relieved and desperate and anticipatory and hungry. All of this made some kind of normal sense that Grif didn't need to fully understand. 

"Huh?" Simmons responded, eyes going back to drifting all over him, and god, god, Grif should not be feeling all of this right now, holy fuck. Simmons's lips curved ever so slightly into a confused smile and his brows furrowed. "Yeah, fine, why..."

They were so close, so unbearably close, and Grif knew he couldn't make this moment last forever. Maybe he could bank on Simmons's daze. Maybe Grif could pretend that he was the one asking all the right questions, not the one who had been lost like Simmons was. Maybe if things went wrong, if he's getting all the wrong signals, he could say, _hey, I just thought you had some brain damage. Not my fault._

"You look a little..." Dazed? Turned on? Hot as hell? Was Simmons even hot? Neither of them were necessarily traditionally attractive, but there was a lot about how Simmons looked right now that was making Grif's brain go haywire, and his voice drifted off again, desperately trying not to move his hand, desperately wanting to, wanting to touch touch touch, and god, this is what people meant when they said touch-starved. 

He swallowed, hard, unable to hide it with Simmons seeing everything, like he was reading a book, and tried again, "You look a little...Out of it." He laughed nervously. "Sure you don't have a concussion?" 

"Uh," Simmons responded, then blinked, eyes dilating, coming back into focus. "Yeah. Um. This is..."

Simmons suddenly looked very, very aware, eyes meeting Grif's, like a deer caught in headlights, and Grif knew he couldn't keep this up for a moment longer.

But god he wished he could.

“So!” Grif’s voice warbled, pulling his hand back _correctly,_ that is, _completely,_ adjusting himself to sit upright and causing Simmons to jolt backwards into a similar position. “We should probably get the jeep out of the ditch before Sarge murders us. Or more specifically, me.”

He was trying not to panic over whatever the fuck had just happened. How long had they been like that? A couple seconds? A minute? It could have been an hour as far as he could tell. It had been like time had stopped.

His heart was pounding in his ears, his back hurt like a bitch, and he was attempting to do everything in his power to disguise the fact that yeah, all right, he was hard as a rock. Again, thank fuck for power armor.

Simmons looked intensely startled by Grif shattering the dreamlike state they had found themselves in, and coughed awkwardly, looking around. “Uh, right,” he squeaked. “Yeah, Sarge is not gonna be happy if the jeep is totaled.”

“So what? It was worth it.” Grif replied. “Can you get your foot unstuck?”

“Huh? Oh, fuck, right,” Simmons said, hurriedly trying to free himself.

It took a minute for them both to jostle around, finally climbing out of the jeep to stand and assess the damage, looking down at the mess.

“Okay, this thing is freakishly strong,” Grif said. The only thing that looked off was the hubcap, which had fallen off somewhere during their tumble. “I’m almost disappointed.”

“I’m just glad we actually made it out with our lives,” Simmons responded, shoving his helmet back on to his head (but not before Grif saw that Simmons's face was still red as a tomato). "I'm blaming you for the jeep, you know." 

"That's fine, I'm blaming you for driving," Grif said.

Simmons spluttered. "What?! I wasn't driving, you were, asshole!"

"Sarge doesn't know that." 

"You're always the one that drives!"

"What, you want me to tell him that you were the one with the dynamite?"

"Sarge doesn't have to know that you weren't driving with the dynamite, and I wasn't the hapless victim of this entire thing." 

Grif gave him a _look_ before putting on his helmet again. "Wasn't this whole thing _your_ idea in the first place?" 

"No! I just mentioned Dukes of Hazzard when we found the dynamite, _you_ were the one who suggested we do the thing with the jeep. Therefore, jeep is your fault." 

"I couldn't have done it without your help though! Your very deliberate and enthusiastic help, may I add." 

"Being too lazy to do it and not being able to do it yourself are two different things, Grif."

"I'd make a case that in this situation, they're exactly the same, and you're not exactly helping your case here, Simmons." 

They bickered mercilessly the entire way back, drowning out the avalanche of thoughts racing through their minds. Ignoring the feelings still tingling at their skin. 


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chorus is a shitstorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its been so long, thank you all SO SO SO much for commenting and giving kudos n stuff!! Your comments are what's keepin me goin and I can't say enough how much I appreciate the kind words
> 
> Y'all get a loooooooooooooong chapter as a thank you for waiting. Funfact: Some of the parts of this chapter were written Y E A R S ago when i first was thinking about starting this fic. They've been revised every couple months since then until now.

Grif wasn't very hungry.

He was trying not to make a point of it. Intermingling mentions of his love of food at a normal rate to cover up the fact that he hadn't made it to the mess hall all day was working well. But Simmons's side-eyeing had not escaped Grif's anxiety fueled awareness. He hated the side-eye.

And sure enough, as they patrolled the Western Armonian roadways, aimlessly, as always, sure e-fucking-nough, Simmons's voice crackled on to his private radio comm.

_"Pssst. Grif."_

Grif turned toward him. "Okay nerd, please explain to me how whispering that on private channel made any sense in your hyper-logical wanna be spock mind."

He imagined Simmons's flushed face as he sputtered, "Sh-shut up! What's up with you today? You weren't in the mess hall for three meals straight and you're acting all. weirdy."

Grif turned away and continued walking. He couldn't help but smile despite the anxiety bubbling in his (empty) stomach. Simmons was a fucking nerd. "I'm not acting _weirdy_ -"

Simmons scoffed, rebuttal on his tongue, so Grif continued, "And I don't need to go to mess hall, I already took my share of stache-worthy-snackage this morning from the kitchens."

Simmons wouldn't let up. "Yeah, really believable, even though you were in the training room with Wash all morning." Okay, well, fuck, Simmons called that out pretty fast, and now it was obvious that Grif was avoiding talking about something.

It was Grif's turn to scoff (lightly, keep it light). "You gonna keep tabs on my whole day, stalker?" The smile wasn’t quite in his voice anymore.

"Oh please, you know Wash. He wouldn't shut up about his angsting over making everyone better soldiers." Simmons voice aired on casual, and Grif hinged on the hope that he would find something else to complain about-- "And don't turn this on me, it's a legitimate question. God knows something's up if you're not eating." God damn it.

A tiny little twig in Grif's carefully constructed mental wall snapped silently.

He mumbled under his breath, "Can you just not give a fuck for once?" and regretted it immediately. Especially considering his comm was on.

Simmons stopped walking. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

It was getting dark and they had to click on their night vision to see. They never took this shit seriously, even when they should, but Grif made it look incredibly important suddenly, looking everywhere but at Simmons. "Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Wh-what do you mean, _'what do I mean?'_ " Simmons retorted automatically, flaring, astonished. "What did _that_ mean?"

Grif responded with the most richly innocent voice he could muster, but he knew it was almost laughably fake as it came out. "I didn't say anything."

"Yes you fucking did!" Simmons voice cracked, so appalled that he was nearly laughing. "What, you're mad at me for asking what's up? What's wrong with that?"

Grif winced. He could feel himself falling into the grave he had just dug for himself, clawing at the edges in messy attempts to save himself. "Okay, just- nevermind, it doesn't matter." But he sounded tired and testy now god damn it.

"No; come on Grif, don't just say shit like that and not talk to me-"

He sighed roughly and turned on his heels, giving in purely out of frustration. "It's that though! You can't leave anything alone! You have to get your panties in a knot about literally everything, even if it doesn't have anything to do with you!"

Simmons was immovable. Grif felt sour and wrong. He hadn't said anything terrible, and it's not like he was wrong, but there was definitely something not right with a Simmons that didn't immediately argue back like a firecracker being lit.

"Just- Just let it go, it's fine! You don't have to give a fuck!" Grif added, as if it would make it better. And because he was an asshole, and an idiot, and a terrible friend, and so tired, and for once allowing his impenetrable fortress of apathy to crumble: "It's none of your business, so it's not really your fuck to give anyway!"

Grif could see the ever so marginally precise changes in Simmon's physical demeanor; already nuanced by the Spartan armor but still present with the observant eye. He watched shoulders tense and straighten in indignation and the flex of hands into fists.

Quietly, with a quaking anger that Grif had never liked to hear from Simmons and even less when Grif had caused it, "Just because you don't give a fuck doesn't mean I have to."

And shit, they had gone into real emotions mode, exactly where Grif didn't want to go right then. He had no response to give. He had no experience with it.

Simmons knew he had nightmares, but what was new about that? So did everyone else on the entire planet. Grif was no special case, and needed no special treatment for it. Grif wasn't going to give Simmons more reasons to be an anxiety fueled jumble of nerves by explaining why he had them.

He wasn't going to tell him about the outpost massacre and the smell of decaying flesh he woke up to some nights. 

Or the aching feeling that tore at him every time one of their lieutenants went into a battle they were too young for.

How the thought of Simmons dying or Sarge or Donut or even fucking Lopez or any of the blues would hurt and he still didn't even know for sure if his sister was alive because yeah, she'd survived some fucking weird stuff, but a war? The military? He wasn’t about to downplay the fucking nightmare that a simulated war could be, but a real war was so much worse.

And if she had died then it'd be his fault because she followed him there in the first place. Yeah, it's the fucking ptsd cliche of the century and he knew it, but he couldn't get rid of the thought.

How could he say any of that? Why would he try, only for it to give Simmons more of a stick up his ass then he already deserved? How could he be another person in Simmons's life to tear him up and make him care and give him more reasons to smash mirrors with bloody fists like the emotional loser of a decent human being Simmons was? How could he be that much more of a shitty friend, a bad idea, a liability, a pathetic person just terrified to the core of being fucking **alone**?

How, _how_ could he say, I don’t want to tell you, because I love you? 

He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Grif turned around again and kept on the patrol. They were dead silent.

 

* * *

 

 

Grif blinked and suddenly he was on the ground. The battle had turned from roaring to silent. 

He hated silence. 

He could have sworn a second ago they were all shooting at Charon troops, but now he could hear a pin drop if a pin had happened to drop. He may be lazy, but he definitely hadn't fallen asleep on purpose that time. 

He could feel weight on his torso. As his eyes adjusted he could see Maroon Armor haphazardly collapsed on top of him. Not moving.

It took him only an extra second before it all clicked. "Shit. Shit- Simmons?!"

He tried to sit up with one arm supporting him, dragging Simmons up with the other. He attempted to physically check for a pulse through the thick layer of black under-armor before realizing he was being stupid and remembered that Spartan Armor could read vitals. It took several borderline-panic inducing moments to navigate the armor software. He could feel his body shake under Simmons's weight. 

Finally he breathed a squeaky sigh of relief as his visor read: UNCONSCIOUS, SEEK MEDICAN ATTENTION, NON LIFE-THREATENING and so on. Not detailed, and something could have still been wrong, so they needed to get out fast, but at least he would be okay for then. He clicked on his comm.

"Guys, Simmons is unconscious, I need-"

And he stopped.

He felt like a coward for a moment. And he gave himself that. Let himself hide in a vision of maroon, dare not look away, not yet. He prayed to every deity he'd ever heard of for just a moment that he hadn't just woken up to a room full of dead people again.

He wasn't even breathing. And what felt like a moment was becoming something immeasurable, a few seconds of a minutes or hours or years, but when Simmons started moving on his own and blearily squinting through his visor at Grif, hands on his shoulders, fear in his voice, Grif was still frozen.

"Grif? Grif are you okay? Fuck, oh god, who’s..." Simmons muttered to himself, looking around the room. Grif was motionless. He couldn't even be happy that Simmons was fucking alive right in front of him because nothing would work suddenly. All he could do was hold on to Simmons with a vice grip. "Grif, can you hear me? It's fine, look, I’m-I’m fine, you're fine, I th-think they're just unconscious. I’m sure the other guys just went on ahead or something. Grif? Grif come on. Breathe, damn it."

Simmons unlatched his helmet with shaking, reckless abandon and looked at Grif with so much unwarranted, honest to god, open, blatant, fearful concern that it was jarring. His face was white as a sheet compared to his normal tawny complexion, eyes brilliant and crystallized, with already drying lines of blood dropping from his hairline in stark red.

But alive. Very alive.

"Grif, seriously, breathe."

He did. Suddenly it was the only thing he COULD do. 

"Yeah, in and out fat-ass, don’t talk, its okay, its all good, just keep--" Simmons rose to check on the others despite Grif having an alarmingly firm grip on Simmons's arm that suddenly made him falter.

Suddenly Simmons was there again, looking at him dead in the eyes with that terrifying, terrifying, brutal honesty that felt like fresh water dumped on him, like jumping into the Pacific, and Grif remembered lava pooling into oceans and thought, that was Simmons. 

"I'm not going anywhere without you," Simmons said, eyes clear and serious, despite his pink ears betraying his confidence in saying something like that, but damn if it wasn't worth it. Damn him for not even knowing what he was saying to Grif. Damn him for saying it anyway. Damn him for taking this better than Grif was. Damn him for havign a clear head when it counted. Damn him damn him damn him and thank christ he was alive. "We gotta keep moving though." 

He loathed the idea of moving toward the possible near-future where he stood up, looked around, and found all- or any- of his friends dead, or that they somehow lost, or someone was about to blow them up, or find Chorus charred and burnt and smoking beneath them. All he wanted to do was stay in this moment and look at living breathing Simmons in front of him. 

Simmons gripped at his arm firmly, and waves of love and trust and reassurance tore at him. "Grif. Come on."

Grif nodded and gulped painfully. "Yeah. Lazy assholes. Help me up, would you?" He still could barely breathe, but he doubted that he would be able to until they were safe back on Chorus anyway.

Grif's grip slid down to Simmons's hands, and Simmons huffed as he pulled him up to shaky feet.

"You're one to talk."

 

* * *

 

 

The day went by and Simmons remained actually quiet about what had happened in the middle of patrol. No pulling him aside, no asking him in front of everyone, and every side-eye followed by silence. Grif didn't know whether to appreciate it or loathe it; Simmons would barely talk to him at all.

They were parting ways in the hallway to their respective bunks for the night, Grif slipping into his room, when he heard Simmons say "hey" and felt the wave of anticipatory discomfort hit him. 

He paused in the doorway before continuing his way to bed, leaving the door open. Simmons followed as expected, hovering anxiously at the entrance of the room. 

Grif slumped down into a sitting position on his cot, facing Simmons and dragging a hand over his exhausted face. "Yo."

Simmons huffed softly- not out of malice. "I get if you don't want to talk. I just meant that you..." He shifted on his feet, hesitantly. 

Grif dropped his hand, still not looking up to meet Simmons's eyes. "Simmons, it's fine. You don't need-"

"If you don't want to talk that's fine, but I want to talk, and I just need like 20 seconds for this." Simmons whispered loudly, slightly sharper but still with an intonation for something...honest.

He looked briefly over his shoulder before stepping into the room a bit more. He breathed in. "I just want you to know that you don't need to _not_ talk. Wanting to and needing to are two completely different things."

Grif didn't know how to respond, because he was slowly melting in a sort of horrible but kind of nice sort of way emotionally, which is what happened every time Simmons said something heartwarmingly lamely messily kind to him. And despite the exhaustion and bitter dread that had been filling his lungs and heart, he suddenly felt more at peace than he had in weeks. Months, maybe. 

He had hoped not to convey any of this, but sighed in relief and exhaustion despite himself, putting his head in his hands. God he was tired.

"Thanks, dude," he said, muffled. 

Simmons continued, "But I'm still gonna harass you to eat some goddamn food whether you like it or not; even _you_ need to eat." And the feeling grew. Grif could only smile and huff a breath of laughter.

"Fucking deal."

 

* * *

 

 

Turned out being in an actual war was slightly more stressful than the simulated ones. And that was saying a lot, considering the simulated ones had been pretty fucking stressful. Which is why when Grif would occasionally show up with a bottle of alcohol most definitely stolen from the Armonian food stock, Simmons would temporarily condone it and let him in. 

“S’not _my_ fault,” Simmons reassured Grif across from him.

“Moove, Simmons,” Grif yawned in response.

Simmons reached out and delicately picked up his knight from the worn silver chess board, waving it around dramatically before tapping it down again.

“Check.” Simmons said with a lopsided grin.

Grif snorted. “Tha’s not how th’ knight moves, S’mons,” he said, head bobbing from holding his jaw in his hands, sprawled out across the floor of the bunk room.

Simmons looked back down. Apparently somewhere in his grand gesture of a move he had sent his knight careening across the battlefield to the complete other side of the board.

“Whoopss, officially too drunk to play chess,” Simmons concluded, flicking the knight over and causing it to fly off the board.

They had started playing chess back in Crash Site Bravo, after Simmons had found the worn set in the wreckage and promptly attempted to blackmail and seduce everyone in the canyon into playing against him. It was the promise of two weeks of homemade food from Simmons himself if Grif beat him that had created a normalish sort of tradition between the two of them. 

The fun part was that although Grif had never beat him, Simmons had discovered that Grif was actually challenging to play against. 

"That means I win," Grif drolled.

"Tha means we both lose," Simmons countered.

"Hmmm sounds like y'dont want to admit d'feat, Simmons."

"Sounds like you're drunk."

"Sounds like YOU'RE drunk."

"Sounds- yeah," Simmons agreed. "I think wer drunk."

Simmons had missed this. Not the alcohol, just the hanging out. He had missed chess, too. He had been a part of his middle and high school chess club, the only place he had felt vaguely welcome to, not because he had friends there but because everyone was openly and freely adversaries. 

Maybe that was what he liked about the Reds and Blues; none of them had ever felt the need to hide themselves from each other, or hide how much they hated each other. There was never any assumption that they _had_ to like each other, never any fear of being in the wrong place because you were part of a _team_ , you _knew_ your place on a team. 

Something in his stomach curled, as it tended to do, remembering the places he had been. He had never made a connection between chess club and Blood Gulch. Clara's and Red Team. His old life and new life. 

He realized he felt like he was missing something.

Homesick? That wasn’t quite the right word, was it?

“Hey Grif,” Simmons said, eyes darting up to the man across from him.

“Hm?” He responded, eyes drooping.

“D’you ever get homesick?”

Blood Gulch wasn’t home, because how could that hellscape ever feel like home? The ridiculous, nauseating heat that would sometimes overwhelm even their armor’s ventilation capacity, the cold nights that left them shivering, the obnoxious company they kept, the horrible mutilations they endured. Maybe something inside of him wanted to say that hellish people deserved hellish places, but they weren't... _that_ bad. No, that wasn’t supposed to be home. 

Rats Nest? Please. 

Simmons had liked Valhalla, but everything had seemed a bit off there. Between Donut and the blues being gone, Caboose being left to his own devices (and usually resulting in fires and explosions and messes that the reds would end up cleaning up out of begrudging care), and all of the mildly traumatizing memories of the Meta's visit, Simmons never quite felt he had time to settle there. 

Grif’s eyes no longer drooped, staring back at Simmons.

Chorus was. Something. Simmons was constantly aware that they were outsiders from the way they were treated; both in reverence and isolation. But the longer they stayed the more connected it seemed all the blues and reds felt to the planet and it's inhabitants.

Simmons thought about home, his technical home, his Literal House, where his father was likely coming home from work, and his mother was making dinner, and the house was clean, spotless, pristine, sharp, cold, like a vacuum. An empty, hollow place, even his room a boring cut-and-paste of what was expected of him, lacking in identity with the exception of science posters and the small box of memorabilia he kept under his bed. 

He thought about the gun in the closet of his father's bedroom, and how whenever his father was away on business, Simmons would lay in bed at night haunted by that fucking gun.

That house _was_ that gun.

He thought about Clara’s warm, cozy home made of wood bookshelves and carpets, paranoia and rebellion, genuine hugs and the smell of tea and spices, a strange feeling of dysphoria which permeated the apartment and made him nauseous with the looming dread that he was fooling himself.

The same feeling he got every time he thought about Blood Gulch arrived again: some irresistible sentimentality swirling with his own bitter loathing. He could see in his mind’s eye a tea packet’s natural dyes falling into hot, clear water, seeping into the molecules and invading it with a bitter, comforting taste. That was Clara's. Bitter tea. 

“Sometimes,” Grif mumbled, causing Simmons to snap back to what was in front of him. “Sometimes I miss it.”

“Hawaii?” Simmons said. Grif nodded.

“Don’t miss the heat,” he continued, Simmons’s eyes trained on him as best as a drunken space-sailor could, “But I miss th’ warm rain. And the roads. Miss drivin down the highway in the summer with the windows down.”

Grif rolled over onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Simmons crawled over to his side. “Yeah?” he said, unable to form a coherent question because they were suddenly all exploding in his mind in the midst of an alcoholic stupor.

“Yeah,” Grif responded, and Simmons willed himself to think of another question to egg the conversation on.

With a sudden burst of bravery, or perhaps just a lack of inhibition, and little creativity, he settled with, “Tell me more. I wanna know bout it.”

Grif’s eyes closed and he took a deep sigh. “S’not all great. Too many people left behind from the tourist craze it used’t’be. Now it’s all run down for th’most part.”

“Hmm,” Simmons prompted, turning himself around so he could lay down next to Grif on the floor, resting his head in his crossed arms. “Beaches?”

Grif huffed. “The beaches are great. You gotta find the little ones. Used to sit out there all day n’ all night.”

Simmons watched a tiny little fond smile cross Grif’s face as he talked, and he tried to picture whatever Grif was seeing in his head.

“Warm sun, soft sand, the smell of salt, the cliffsides,” Grif murmured, falling asleep.

“Can I visit?” Simmons blurted out, muffled into his arms. His body refused to panic, despite some part of him properly processing some level of embarrassment and regret at being so forward.

Grif peeked an eye open to look at him, smile still on his face. “‘Said you could, didn’t I?”

He had. Simmons just wanted to know if he had meant it. He looked away.

“I don’t miss home,” Simmons said. “I don’t miss it at all.”

Grif didn’t respond.

“Actually,” Simmons continued. “I don’ have one now. Slammed the door in my face cuz o ra-radmun.”

“What?” Grif said.

“Right in m’face,” Simmons said. “Looked me right in the eye. God, I think I hate them.”

His eyes blurred, and he wiped at his face with a sleeve urgently. “Fuck,” he said.

“Hey Simmons,” Grif said, turning around to lay on his stomach, scooching over to the point that he was leaning his side on Simmons. “Wha was that word you were saying? Ratman? Rad-Man?”

“No,” Simmons said, mumbling, “Rhadaman.”

Grif physically froze next to him.

“Th’dumb planet that got massacred,” Simmons clarified offhandedly. “I was so stupid. God, I’m so stupid.”

He hid his face in his arms, letting the inevitable embarrassing tears swell up and stain his sleeves. “They hate me, god, I’ve worked so fucking hard, that’s all I do, goddammit, n’ I fucked it all up,” he mumbled, stumbling over himself. “One thing, one thing n I fucked up erything.”

The waves of exhaustion started to meld with the blur of inebriation, and he started to relax into the swell of confusion in his head, eyes closing as the mumbles turned to less than whispers.

“M’fucked up,” He murmured, almost entirely incoherent.

Grif exhaled, slowly.

“What’d you do?” He said, delicately, quietly, not quite looking at Simmons, but when he turned the man was already falling asleep.

“S’mons,” Grif said, bumping his shoulder into Simmons’s to little reaction. Grif breathed in a shaky breath, attempting to maintain his composure. “You can’t fall asleep on my floor, Simmons.”

Nonetheless, Simmons had indeed fallen asleep on his floor, rebelling against his orders. 

“Maverick,” Grif huffed, moving sluggishly to sit up and shake Simmons by the shoulder. “Simmons, seriously, you don’t want me carrying you back to your bunk. You’d have a hernia if y’found out someone saw.”

Simmons stirred to mumble something that sounded ridiculously like “‘ll jus’ sleep here.”

Grif’s brain tripped. “On my floor? Y’gonna be a bitch tomorrow about it.”

“Bed.”

Oh lord. Grif dragged a hand over his face, like he could wipe away any trace of the emotions festering in his chest. “‘M not gonna sleep on the floor either, Simmons.”

Simmons pushed himself up slowly, and seemingly incapable of much else, sat up just enough to lean his weight into Grif’s, resting his head on Grif’s cushioned shoulder. “Yeah,” was the most he seemed capable of replying with.

He should say no. He shouldn’t get anywhere close to any of...this. But the fog of his mind was heavy, as was the weight of his eyelids and the desire to rest, and the idea of dragging Simmons’s drunk ass to a completely different room was exhausting even as a concept.

Simmons was already asleep again, drool staining his shoulder.

With far too much trepidation in his movements, he slung an arm beneath Simmons’s already bent legs and another under an arm. With little reaction from the lighter man besides the redhead fitting even closer into the crook of Grif’s neck, he lifted him up and did his best attempt at not stumbling as he got himself to his feet.

It was when he was lifted that Simmons’s eyes fluttered open in surprise, clinging close to Grif out of reflex as his body alerted him to the danger of falling. Their chests were close enough together to feel Grif’s chuckle reverberate through his own.

Expecting him to drop Simmons into the bed unceremoniously, Grif instead climbed into the bed still carrying him, the two of them sloppily rearranging themselves to lay perpendicular to each other. It was at this moment that Simmons remembered that this bunk was not quite made for two, and neither of them had much rearranging to do after all, Simmons with his arm still wrapped around Grif's shoulder and another tucked tightly between them, resting on his chest. Beyond that, there was very little space between them, bodies wound together comfortably.  
  
Grif's hand circled around his waist, fully enveloping him in warmth, their faces inches apart. Simmons's head was resting on Grif's other arm, which was curled around his hair, and he knew it was going to go numb within minutes, but couldn't imagine for the life of him changing anything about their position.

God he was drunk.  
  
"This okay?" Grif said, eyelids drooping heavily. The nervousness in his voice betrayed the notion that he was as laid-back about the situation as he may want to appear.

Simmons blinked slowly back at him. Wow, they were really close. He could see the speckles in Grif’s mismatched eyes, the healing line between his tawny skin and Grif’s rich brown, feel the safety and warmth of his body against him.

Simmons smiled. Genuinely. “Mhm,” he said, closing his eyes.

(Grif was in love)

(and suffering)

And Simmons didn’t _get it_ yet, he hadn’t known to be looking for the word love, but something close came to his mind as he drifted into sleep. Something about right there, right then, had filled up a spot in Simmons’s chest that he had otherwise resigned himself would always feel painfully devoid, raw and cold. Now it was warmth, warmth, warmth, safety and peace, like he had just clicked the first puzzle into place of a bigger picture he hadn’t ever thought he could start or finish.

He didn’t know what the picture was, but now he wanted to.

It was probably the alcohol. Fuck, he was probably going to be an alcoholic.

But he wasn’t thinking about alcohol, he was thinking about how everything seemed to suck less when he was with Grif. How sometimes the rest of the world could just go ahead and melt away and they could sit out on the side of god knows where and watch together. For once, _where_ didn’t matter.

His mind wouldn’t remember in the morning the moment his heart learned where _home_ was.

Grif watched Simmons fall asleep, eyes drifting shut himself, resigning himself to enjoying this moment in time, feeling the dread of the morning. In the morning, Simmons would shout, leap out of bed, confused and laughably flustered, but Grif would be too, and they’d both pretend it never happened, and for too long “Rhadaman” would be on the tip of Grif's tongue, but never farther. Not yet.

But at least he didn’t have nightmares that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont know if I'm going to continue this fic for very many more chapters so we may be coming on the close pretty soon, I hope this chapter was okay? Very nervous about this one since these scenes were written so long ago, tell me whatchu think


	9. Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All too suddenly, he realized why he came to this.
> 
> “We need to talk,” Grif whispered, letting the words slip out before he could think about it.  
> \--  
> Grif and Simmons talk. Simmons is very very confused and then he's not. Lots of really intense eye contact ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been busy as hell and also just needed time to figure out what the right way to do this chapter was, but oh boy, did I find it. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has followed this story for so long and sent support, it means the world to me. Still have at least a one or two chapters left of this story, so please bear with me as I try and get these to you despite a busy schedule!

Simmons was never good at this sort of stuff.

He’d gone to a few funerals as a kid. The rooms always smelled like old people, everything was too sanitized, too unfamiliar. There were expectations from adults that Simmons act courteously, process properly, and comprehend fully the concept of death without anyone actually bothering to sit him down and tell him.

Despite this, he caught on fairly fast, the definitions simple and straightforward, unburdened by any attempts at romanticizing, complicating, or fantasizing death. So plain and normalized was the experience as a whole that Simmons never really thought much of it; it was just what happened after life. A boring party with crackers and carrot sticks where everyone looked at a corpse and repeated "I'm sorry for your loss" over and over again. 

Suicide was a constant concept, fluttering through waves of dysphoria and dancing between the splitting seams of his sanity, but there was always some terrible rationale which kept him rooted, too certain that he could be something - that he was _supposed_ to be something - to throw it away.

More than anything, he was terrified that death would not be a kind and forgiving embrace, but instead another level of guilt, anxiety, and suffering that he’d be all the more repentant of.

So the gun stayed in the box in his dad’s closet. The mirrors were broken but the shards were never utilized to their fullest extent. His separation from the concept and scope of death remained at a distance, and he stopped going to the funerals. They were boring anyway.

He had killed people. He had killed a lot of people.

Was it easy to forgive himself for?

Yeah.

He should probably examine that more.

But he wouldn’t. It helped him do his job, help the people who needed it, rise in the ranks, save the day.

He breathed deeply, staring at his own helmet, a smear of a reflection staring back at him in the visor. He had been sitting in this storage closet for far too long now; a solitary place he’d found in this new base they had deemed _New Armonia._ It was somewhere he had come to hide once or twice before, to regain his wits. It was just a few twists and turns from the mess hall, which was where the funeral was being held.

He wasn’t good at this stuff.

He wasn’t good at saving people. The bullet that he had intended to catch ended up shooting straight through him and lodging itself in Grif’s gut anyway, and they had limped as far as they could together before Simmons had collapsed and Caboose had to carry him the rest of the way out of _The Staff of Charon_.

He wasn’t good at the fallout. He woke up on the escape hellicarrier to the sound of Carolina screaming, raw and heartbreaking, to a wall cracking under knuckles, to Tucker with his head in his hands. And he couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t do anything to make it better, couldn’t be anything more than dead weight in Caboose’s arms as tears started to fall down dirty, blood-smeared cheeks.

He wasn’t good at the celebrations. When they landed, all Simmons remembered was a roar; the rumble of thousands screaming, cheering, crying, louder than the helicarrier’s engines but somehow not louder than his heartbeat in his ears, the numbness eating at his skin, his mind, his heart. When he began to black out as the medics rushed towards him, all he could think was, “Thank god, I don’t have to go to the party,” like he was back in his freshman year of high school cancelling plans for the dopamine high.

He wasn’t good at condolences. People visited in the med-ward to tell him how brave he was, how they were all heroes, how they had saved a whole world, and Simmons knew he should feel proud, now more than ever, because it was all true, for once, for real, but he couldn’t. Not when Grif was in the bed to his right, not when _Tucker_ of all people kept showing up to check on them, not when Caboose obviously couldn’t tell what had happened, his optimistic presence overwhelming them all with some deep shame at their cowardice, no one brave enough to explain.

There was a card from Maroon Team. All the girls had signed it. It was covered in hearts and filled with love. It was something that would usually make Simmons sputter in terror, fluster in embarrassment, and turn the other way. But laying in the hospital bed it just felt sad. He mulled over the thought of being just another casualty to a war-torn generation of kids who desperately wanted something to believe in. He thought about what would have happened if none of them had survived.

He wasn’t used to being properly sad. So he stopped. He put it away somewhere, let it sit, let it be, let it not be.

Did it really make him better at handling this? Or was he kidding himself again?

Who knew. But it wasn't like he was gonna stop now.

He took a deep breath and put his helmet on, and stood up from one of the many storage containers stuffed in the closet.

Death is death is death is death.

Church is dead.

Church is dead.

 

* * *

 

Grif had refused to show up for the ceremony, but ended up there anyway, hovering on the side of the open room like a decayed, wilting wallflower, occasionally edging closer to the stage where the reds and blues were stationed to the left, not quite ready to join the unusually solemn rainbow.

“Marissa Dawson,” Kimball spoke from the podium.

Church was the symbolic martyr the funeral centered around, but it was also a funeral for every soldier that had died without one during the war. The few UNSC press that were allowed into the event were whispering to each other and madly scribbling about AI rights, scheming about anecdotal analogies, how Church was a perfect symbol of the sacrificial soldier; those without freedom who somehow sacrifice what little they had for the good of mankind. 

“Daniel C Polk.”

Grif heard one of the journalists mutter in antithesis, “Don’t get too caught up in the symbolism and forget the whole point: he was a person.”

“Thomas Afonso.”

A man muttered back to the first journalist in some kind of sarcastic tone. Grif couldn’t hear the words but decided he didn’t want to. He started parting his way through the crowds, trying to cause little commotion while Kimball spoke from the stage, listing name after name, and god, he got it, there were a lot of fucking deaths.

“Hasan Purser.”

He grit his teeth. He shut his eyes tight and sparks of light spattered across the backs of his eyelids. He tried not to think about red, to think about the smell of decay, to think about silence, to think about Simmons with a gunshot wound, pale and bloody-

“Diana Kidjo.”

Some had decided to dress down from their armor for this event, but the reds and blues decided to keep their armor on. Practicality demanded that the suit’s healing units stay active while Simmons, Grif, and Tucker were up on their feet, like a cast keeping their bodies from falling apart. Unspoken was the fear of dressing down and being even more vulnerable than they currently were.

“Kate Gigan.”

Simmons was at the end of the reds and blue’s line, closest to the crowds, and Grif placed himself next to him silently. Simmons’s head tilted his direction in acknowledgement, but Grif didn’t look back. He just kept his eyes trained at Kimball’s feet.

All too suddenly, he realized why he came to this.

“We need to talk,” Grif whispered, letting the words slip out before he could think about it.

Simmons helmet tilted his way again.

“Mikko Collins.”

“After,” Grif clarified.

“Matthew Numan.”

Simmons didn’t say anything, but somehow the flood of anxiety was apparent to Grif with absolutely no movement on Simmons’s part, no expression visible behind the visor.

“Dessa Mouskouri.”

He eventually nodded, then turned to look up at Kimball again. Grif did the same, fighting the raw, painful desire to grab Simmons’s hand and squeeze hard, connect them together in this nauseating experience they both were so bad, so crude, so awkward with. Connect to that feeling of unplaced grief, desperate denial, numbness in its most comforting form.

There was a part about Church in the speech. Kimball asked if anyone wanted to say words.

She looked their way.

No one moved.

Stiffly, Carolina marched to the stage. No one missed the way she clutched the sides of the podium like a lifeline.

The silence was a physical weight in the air.

“He was a good teammate,” She said, her words coarse. “A good friend.”

She paused. Her voice broke. “A good brother.”

She left the stage.

 

* * *

 

Simmons considered just walking away.

The crowds were dispersing, the reds and blues talking amongst themselves, and there was every opportunity to start walking in one direction and never, ever, ever stop, just fuckin get the fuck out and not talk about what they were about to talk about.

Simmons didn’t _know_ what they were going to talk about and that was worse, that was the terrible part, because no matter what it was, it was going to be bad, it was going to be raw, it was going to be serious, and if he just fucking knew what it was maybe he could go meltdown over it first, write a few note cards of pre-arranged speeches, recite bullshit into a mirror and then cry because there was no way he was going to say any of it right anyway.

But he didn’t know, he didn’t know what this was about, and something in his head was saying, _Yes You Fucking Do Know You Idiot, You Complete Asshole_ , but he didn’t know what the FUCK that voice was talking about either.

What ended up happening, instead of walking away, or saying something casually like, “Hey, so what’s up?” or anything better than the ultimatum, was them just standing there, awkwardly, like statues.

Simmons coughed, because he was cool like that.

It did enough to knock Grif out of his stupor momentarily, and Simmons could tell an eye-roll had occurred under the helmet. “God, okay, come on.”

He started walking toward the doors, and Simmons, terrified, followed.

After they had eased their way through the majority of the crowds petering out of the event and walked along a couple corridors, Grif stopped in his tracks.

“Uh,” he said. “I didn’t think this through.”

“Think what through?” Simmons said, then suddenly more urgently, “Grif, what are- what’s - what are you doing? _Think what through?”_

“Jesus calm down, I just mean I realized this isn’t...Armonia. We don’t even have rooms assigned to us yet. I don’t- I don’t know where to go to talk.”

Simmons calmed slightly. Grif continued, “Y’know, privately.” And Simmons’s anxiety returned full force.

“Uh, okay,” Simmons said, brain a terrible machine burning at the seams and puffing smoke. “Hm. Right.”

“Are you actually thinking or are you just making sounds that are almost words to fill up the time?”

“Hmmm. Maybe.”

“God, okay, there’s gotta be something around here…” Grif said, moving again and turning a corner. “What’s this door?”

“Oh,” Simmons said, moving forward, realizing where they were. “Yeah, that’s a storage closet. I found it wh- I mean I have been in there for Business Matters,” he corrected, his voice lowering an octave and cracking. “And Work. And Doing My Job.”

Grif snorted. “You mean you found a nap spot and didn't tell me? _Simmons_ , I’m hurt,” he said, turning to look at him and placing a hand to his heart. Simmons rolled his eyes.

“Whate- wait you want to talk in _here?”_ he sputtered, as Grif opened the door and flicked on a light.

“Yeah, why not?”

“We could find, I don’t know, a meeting room or something?”

Grif took off his helmet and rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna pitch you a company merger through power-point, I just need to...to...just get in here.”

Grif held the door open, and Simmons gulped, looking around him. No one seemed to be paying them any attention, so he stepped in quickly and shut the door behind them in a flurry.

It was a little dim, and a little bit more cramped than he was used to, but they had enough room to walk around a bit, a solid three or four feet between them, and oh boy, Simmons was regretting this.

He gulped, looking back at Grif. “Uh. So?”

Grif blinked, then looked away nervously. “Uh, right, geez, this is stupid.”

He wandered over to one of the storage containers and sat down on it, palms digging into his eye sockets. “This is...I don’t know why, or, I guess I do, but I need to ask you a question about something you mentioned a while ago.”

Simmons realized he should probably like, sit down too, or something. He did so on a crate opposite Grif, sweat ready to pour down his face. He took his helmet off, because he was too warm and it felt weird with it on if Grif didn’t have his on. He gulped again, which was annoying, because it was really quiet in here actually and he was sure Grif could hear him.

A million possibilities for what the fuck Grif could be talking about fluttered through his mind all at once, and he thought of making some kind of joke, or to just admitting some kind of bullshit ahead of time (what did he do wrong? Was he hiding anything? He secretly liked ABBA, was that worth all of this?) but his throat was dry and the words wouldn’t come.

“Okay,” he said instead.

Grif looked up at him through the fingers dragging along his face, obviously also hating this, and Simmons wanted to feel some sort of solidarity in that except that Grif knew what was happening and Simmons didn’t and Simmons wanted to know what was going on dammit.

There was a long, long moment.

“Rhadaman,” Grif said, very suddenly, his hands twisting together in front of his mouth immediately, but still holding eye contact with Simmons, and Simmons startled.

“Oh,” Simmons said, simultaneously dreadful and anxious and disappointed. Disappointed? That’s a weird one.

“Yeah,” Grif said, gaze fixed on him.

Simmons fiddled with his hands, the eye contact unbreakable. “What...What do you wanna know about it?”

Grif groaned and put his face in his hands. _“Simmons."_

 _“What?”_ Simmons squeaked, then recalibrated. “Okay, okay, it’s...it’s not a big deal, I just, when- when did I mention…?”

“We were both drunk off our ass playing chess like, almost last year,” Grif grumbled out. “You said...you said your parents...I don’t even know, but I kinda… I kinda need to know. For reasons.”

This demanded a pause. “For reasons?”

“For reasons.”

“What-”

"Are you gonna make this hard, or what? Jesus, nevermind,” Grif said, pushing himself up roughly from the crate and marching toward the door.

Simmons rose instinctively, muscle memory reenacting years of experience forcing Grif to face responsibilities before he could run away from them, and grabbed his wrist just as Grif clasped the handle of the door. “Oooh no you don’t, if I’m gonna say my thing you gotta tell me yours.”

Grif glared at him, the arm Simmons had grabbed now pulled up to his chest, and woah, they were kinda close, but Simmons didn’t want to let go. Grif could be fast when he wanted to be.

“I asked first,” Grif said.

“I asked second,” Simmons said, out of instinct. Before Grif could respond, he continued, “but if I say my thing first you have to explain to me why you needed to know.”

He felt like a petulant child, in a grade-school showdown with another equally petulant child. Grif stared tensely at him, then down at the hand on his wrist. “Fine, but can you let your sweaty nerd hand let go of my arm?”

Simmons withdrew his grasp and attempted not to sigh in relief too obviously. “I’m wearing my gloves, idiot.”

“You look like you just went for a swim in grease, dude, I can sense the nerd sweat,” Grif teased, the slightest curve to his mouth, and Simmons couldn’t recall seeing a smile on his face since before the _Staff of Charon._

Simmons huffed quietly, then sat down again. Then stood up again. Then sat down again.

He stared. He bit his lip.

“You wanna stand up one more time and see if it’ll help?”

“Shut up. I’m-” Simmons started, then stopped. “It’s actually pretty stupid. Maybe it’s cool? No, it’s mostly stupid, yeah.”

“Dude we’re gonna die in here if you don’t get to it.”

“Shut up! Okay, so, Basic, right?”

“Basic.”

“And then we got transferred, and then...and then we got transferred again.”

Grif nodded, a little more hesitantly, sitting down where he had been. Simmons stared at him.

“Right,” he said, distant, then remembered himself. “Well, right, so, they sent me to Rhadaman. Which I’m assuming you know, is uh, the colony that got massacred.”

Grif broke the eye contact, his eyes flicking away very quickly. “Right.”

Simmons kept staring, feeling like he was missing something about the way Grif’s demeanor was shifting incrementally, like a puzzle coming together very slowly before his eyes but with no idea of what it would be until the very end.

“Right. So, uh, they wanted us to do a rescue. Which was uh, super fucking stupid,” Simmons grinned nervously. "There was basically one guy alive on the whole planet and, well, I could have been doing navigation through this giant storm, but no, I had to be on the ground looking, so we...we went looking.”

Simmons eyes had wandered to the dusty floor in his rambling, his hands shaking a little from the exhaustion of the day. Of remembering that place.

“So...there was a lot of dead people. And, yeah, _whatever,”_   he waved a hand and snorted, like if he was flippant enough he could lighten the mood, but it was becoming clear that wouldn’t be entirely possible in this conversation.

“...But....very....very dead people. Yeah. But!” Simmons said, scratching the back of his head, a lopsided smile on his face, “Guess what? I found the guy! Fucking crazy!”

Simmons looked up at this moment to see Grif’s eyes and the words died in his throat a little bit.

Grif looked frozen, shadows cast over his face but eyes sharp and wide.

They stared at each other for a moment. Simmons cleared his throat.

“So,” Simmons said, much more nervous, much more anxious, much more everything, everything about this was uncomfortable and he didn’t know why and he wanted to know why and he really didn’t want to explain what happened after but, “Long story short, they didn’t actually wanna take this guy back, it was more of...they wanted info and this guy looked pretty dead, but I grabbed him anyway because I hated the Lieutenant, and uuuuuh...I got demoted!”

He emphasized the last bit with a little wave of his hands. “And I guess that’s why I got put in Blood Gulch! _Ta-da!"_   He dropped his hands to his lap. “And my family disowned me! And that guy is probably dead anyway! So. There.”

He crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling, realizing the anxiety had made him shaky. “It’s actually a pretty stupid thing now that I think about it, but. It just sucks.”

There was a stretch of silence.

“Do you regret it?” Grif asked.

Simmons looked at him. Grif wasn’t looking back, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

He wanted to tell him to put it out. He had no idea what the ventilation was like in this stuffy closet. _My lungs, asshole_ also drifted into his mind. Instead he barely could breathe out: “What?”

“Do you regret saving the guy on Rhadaman?” Grif said, this time looking at him eye to eye, face casual, the expression he always used when he was trying to hide something, the kind of neutrality he used like a shield, and suddenly Simmons was frustrated and scared. Scared he would never drag Grif through the rest of this.

But he looked down again at the cigarette, bit down on the flood of anger, remembering long nights waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for Grif to open up again. He closed his eyes, and inhaled deep, ignoring the strange comfort of the nicotine filling his lungs.

"If I answer this,” Simmons said, opening his eyes again and locking them with Grif’s, “You have to tell me why this is so important to you.”

Wrong move.

Grif took a long drag, staring back, like a stupid fucking showdown. After a while: “It’s not...It’s not _that_ important to me.”

Simmons blanched. “Oh, okay Grif, you pull me aside after a fucking funeral and we sit in a closet and you make me tell a story about how I _fucked_ up and _destroyed_ my life-” Grif recoiled slightly at this, but Simmons couldn’t stop, “-but now you wanna act all casual about it. Okay, fine, if it’s _not that big of a goddamn deal,_ then why can’t you just fucking tell me?”

“Because you _do_ regret it!” Grif burst, and oh shit, why did he look _hurt?_

 _"What?”_ Simmons said, too angrily, riding off the mounting tension, but also so fucking confused. “I didn’t- I didn’t say t-”

“You said you fucked up, and-”

“What does that even have to do with anything?”

“It has to do with _everything_ , it has to-” Grif stood up suddenly, panicked, angry, staring down at Simmons like he had _burned_ him, and Simmons sat wide-eyed in confusion as Grif continued, falling into a ramble, “-it has to do with our entire fucked up- fucked up _everything_ , our entire _goddamn weird lives_ , with you and me and you taking a fucking bullet for me and getting those-” he pointed accusingly at Simmons’s face, “-THOSE, and my...YOUR...face, and-”

“Grif,” Simmons said, putting his hands up slowly, because this was going downhill extremely fast and they were only accelerating. “Calm down.”

Grif does not calm down. “NO, I’m not- I can’t be okay with this, I can’t fucking do this anymore, I don’t understand _why_.” His voice cracked on the last word, and Simmons somehow felt like the worst person in the entire universe because Grif sounded like he was going to _cry_ and Simmons wanted to fix this, somehow, had the mounting illogical urge to stand up and hug Grif and never let go, but he couldn't, and he didn’t know what was _wrong_.

Grif breathed deep and harsh, glaring at the ground before looking back up at him with something close to manic desperation. “Why did you do it? _Why did you save me?”_

Simmons's mouth opened. Then it closed.

Oh.

He blinked a couple times.

He started to say something. He stopped.

Grif stared him down, hands balled into shaking fists. Finally he looked away.

“This was a stupid idea,” Grif said, threw the door open, and left. And this time Simmons didn’t stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, whoops


End file.
